Mark: Hi, it's Mark Bossert. I'm here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver. Vancouver's best auto service experience. And we're talking cars. How are you doing Bernie?
Bernie: I'm doing very well this morning.
Mark: So today's victim is a 2006. Is that right? 2006 Smart car. What was going on with this little vehicle?
Bernie: Yeah, it's hard to believe there's 2006 Smart cars on the road still, but we have a few customers with them and they seem to be working pretty well. So, although this one did come in because it wouldn't start. So sometimes they don't work. Anyways, what was happening with this car? The owner had it towed in because it would crank over, but the engine wouldn't start.
Mark: And this is a diesel model?
Bernie: This is a diesel model. Yeah.
Mark: They don't actually make these anymore. Is that right?
Bernie: No, they stopped doing them. I can't remember, sort of in the mid to late, early two thousands, you know.
Mark: So you did some diagnosis. What did you find?
Bernie: We did some diagnostics and we found that the fuel pump wasn't being activated. So we tested the fuel pump circuit and we found that basically the SAM module, which is short for signal acquisition module, which is a Mercedes fancy name. Basically what it is, is basically a junction and fuse box. Which has a bunch of internal relays and a lot of fancy stuff. There's a burnt, corroded, overheated connection where the connector went into the SAM module. Once we diagnosed it, it's visually noticeable what the problem is, but it destroys the module internally. So that needs to be replaced. And the wiring pin needs cleaning up and repair.
Mark: Okay. Let's go to some pictures. Yeah. Have a look at our Smart car. There it is. Looks pretty good actually.

Bernie: Yeah. It's great. Great shape. It's excellent. And I believe this one's a convertible too. So this is a car that's worth keeping and holding onto. It's fun taking a roof off.
Mark: So, are these aluminum?
Bernie: I don't know. You know, people think, Oh my God, that's such a tiny little car. It's got to be super dangerous, but they're very well built in terms of crash safety for a size of car. Apparently they hold their structural integrity really well. So I'm not sure what they do, but they put a lot of thought and design into them, but I'm sure if you, you know, hit a three quarter ton truck, you're going to be flying in the opposite direction. Pretty easily.
Mark: Well, any car will, truthfully.
Bernie: Any car, yeah, but these are just so small.
Mark: What do we see here?

Bernie: So this is the SAM module here. This is one side of it. So as I said, it's a junction and fuse box. You can see four fuses on the right. And you can see a lot of electrical plugs and connectors. And this is just one side of the module. Actually, all the connectors are on the bottom side of the module.
And if you do the other picture, there we go. That is the other side of the module. And again, there's a number of fuses there. And inside, probably more to the left, there's probably some, some relays that are built into the module.

Mark: So this isn't a fix it part. If it's not working, it's replace it.
Bernie: You got to replace it. And the only place you can buy it, unfortunately, is from Mercedes. It's not a bargain deal, this isn't actually expensive part.
And there we see the problem that arrows pointing to the pin that powers up the fuel pump and that pin is corroded. Actually in real life, you can see a little better than our picture.

There's one more picture, I know you've got to show us of the actual wiring connector. This one's a little more obvious. If you look closely at the different pins, you can see where the arrow is pointing. It's distorted. It's been overheated. We clean up the pin connection. Otherwise the problem would happen again, but you can sort of see out of focus in the background, a bunch of coloured wires hanging there on plugs. So this sits underneath the driver, sort of where your left knee would sit if you kicked up with your foot, it's kind of up in that area, buried under the dash.

Mark: So do you replace this connector as well?
Bernie: No, it's not damaged badly enough. We can actually just repair the terminal. So we do that and put a new module in and turn the key and the fuel pump fires up and away it goes.
Mark: So this isn't the first one of these you've seen.
Bernie: No, we've seen a few of them. So it's not an uncommon problem. I don't like to predict a diagnostic on something, but, you know, it's been interesting because in the last couple of months we've seen at least a couple of them in the last two months.
So it's obviously, you know, at the age of the car, it's an 06. We're in 2025 now. The car's almost 20 years old. And you know, that's a fair bit of time and use. So interesting problems creep up over time.
Mark: So that could have been a failure inside the SAM unit?
Bernie: That's what happened. Things break down, it gets hot. You know, and then it transfers the heat into the wire and the connector. But the problem is actually inside the module. It's not actually the connection, although it does start to damage the connection.
Mark: Yeah, there's just too much current running through there.
So, if you're having issues with your Smart car, any issues, they fix them all. Gas, diesel, electric. The guys to see are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them online at pawlikautomotive.com. Or you can call them to book at (604) 327-7112. They're always busy. You have to book ahead. Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Thanks so much for watching and listening. Thanks Bernie.
Bernie: Thank you Mark. Thanks for watching.