Under seat wiring short

[smartSparky]

Hey everybody,

On Sunday while driving the twisties of So. Cal. my beloved Charlie up and died on me. The tale of the adventures of getting Roadside Assistance and a flatbed tow in the sticks where there is no cell coverage is a tale for another day.

The bottom line is I had a short in the wiring under the drivers seat that my dealer is refusing to cover under warranty. So, here's why & how I need your help.

If there is another thread on this issue, moderators or anyone else, please point me that way and I'll avoid duplicate posts.

If you have had a short problem with the wiring under the driver's seat, with or without warranty coverage by the dealer, please post here. I'm about to head into battle against my dealer and need all of the help and documentation I can gather.

Thanks!

[jwight]

What's their reason for not covering it under warranty?

[chieftmc]

Originally Posted by jwight

What's their reason for not covering it under warranty?

My question also

[scdaf]

Originally Posted by jwight

What's their reason for not covering it under warranty?

+1 from here. Have you done electrical mods?

[smartSparky]

To try and stay objective, I don't want to reveal too many details. But, I have an after market, non-OEM, arm rest installed. They're claiming it abraded through the wiring harness under the seat and shorted out the wiring.

I'm totally mystified as to how this could have happened. I'm looking for anyone that has had this problem, especially with no after-market adds, that has had the problem, whether covered by warranty or not.

Make sense?

[cubefx]

Is the armrest bolted to the seat or to the floor?

[smartSparky]

No, only the arm rest which is permanently fixed to the seat frame.

[cubefx]

In order to install armrest you would need to cut one zip tie which is holding underseat harness. I have it done on my car. I just inspected my smart and I do not see how harness can be damaged. Did you expect the harness yourself? Where is exactly the short? Did you install the armrest yourself? How long do you have it?

[John_H]

For what it's worth, repairing the harness yourself isn't a big issue if they choose not to repair under warranty. Unfortunately making things perfect would involve replacing the entire harness with about 20 hours of labor.

If you have some abraded wires, you can use crimp-on splices such as these which include a gel to help avoid corrosion. So stripping, no soldering, you can even use scissors if you don't have wire cutters. You would need a pair of pliers (I use slip-joint pliers with ease) and short lengths of wire to replace the shorted or frayed bits. Getting the seat up and out to access everything is simple with T45 torx bits.

I haven't heard of problems with shorts. I know the airbag sensor connector has been a problem for some which led to the one 20 hour harness replacement I mentioned.

[Okie Boy]

Originally Posted by smartSparky

To try and stay objective, I don't want to reveal too many details. But, I have an after market, non-OEM, arm rest installed. They're claiming it abraded through the wiring harness under the seat and shorted out the wiring.

I'm totally mystified as to how this could have happened. I'm looking for anyone that has had this problem, especially with no after-market adds, that has had the problem, whether covered by warranty or not.

Make sense?

Unless the smart center can reasonably demonstrate that the installation of the arm-rest caused the cable to be damaged it is a warranty repair. On the other hand if the failure was caused by the arm-rest it would not be a warranty repair.

Some dealers are quick to blame problems on after market products with no proof that the problem was caused by that product.

Contact smart USA and appeal the decision if the dealers finding is incorrect.