Dear EFers

The other night we noticed that the fan in our smart doesn't work anymore. The heating is still fine (The seat warmers still keep my bottom nice and toasty ) but the air circulation for demisting the windscreen etc is kaput

They've quoted 480CHF to replace the contacts.. is that too steep? I have no idea about this kind of thing!

Ta in advance

Puddy

problem is that Smarts attract Mercedes prices for parts and servicing

Hmmm yeah guess so

Then on top of that they want 300 CHF to replace the railing for the passenger seat rollers

I think I've been here WAY too long. This doesn't sound that expensive to me.

Unless I'm confused about what exactly it being fix? Are they fixing the fan and the demisting sprayer? Or just one set of contacts that do both of these things?

How close are you to Germany? That should bring the price down some. But you have to go there leave the car, go back & pick it up, etc.

"How close are you to Germany?"

From Aargau I'd guess 30km max. Well worth the trip to Waldshut, as you cross the border, go forward at the light and in about 100m there will be a Mercedes stealership on the left. I'm willing to bet they'll fix it for half the price. If not, at least you can do some grocery shopping while there

So your cabin fan isn't working? this is *usually* just a burnt out resistor (in other cars at least, don't know what smart use) and can be fixed for pennies.

If you are not a member of a smart owners forum then join up to one asap! you can bet its a common fault and someone has created a detailed 'how to' fix guide.

Had this issue with our MG, problem fixed in minutes for £2 in total iirc.

Hmm quoting from a specialist
Q The heating fan in my roadster is not working, why?452A Most likely it’s the connection to the switch itself, they seem to have a poor connection there and the connection arcs and burns away the metal in the switch unit. It needs repairing, sometimes a piece of wiring loom and connector are required and sometimes the central consol unit will also need to be replaced

Handy DIY Guide

Hi miniMia
They're replacing the contact resistor thingee that makes the fan go. My husband thinks it's pretty easy to get the part, but it's really fiddly to get at the right place to exchange it.

We're more like 100km from the border so it's a bit far . That and with this weather the windscreen gets so fogged/iced up that we can't drive far in it. Otherwise it's a great idea ... we do that for clothes and groceries
Really good idea! Thanks a lot!

I hope they wash all the salt and muck off of the car and give it a good vacuum for the price they're charging!

Cheers

Puddy

__________________
I didn't lose my mind. It was mine to give away - Robbie Williams

I couldn't be arsed to google lol, still sounds like an easy fix

damn!! just looked at the diy guide (that's a top guide btw, top find dodgyken) what a cheap and nasty way to control your heating fans!!! merc really did do a cost cutting corner cutting exercise on the smarts

I also found this, which seems to match the problem we're having:

http://www.evilution.co.uk/index.php?id=350

I don't think it's the switch, rather the resistor that's blown and needs replaced...

Will keep you updated when I get it back tomorrow

Cheers
Puddy

yep that's what went on ours, you replace those horrid 1960's solution coils with nice big chunky 1970's resistors, job done.

actually saying that, it seems smart are using solder as some sort of fuse!! OMG!!! I really can't get over how much of a botch job the heating on smarts is!!

I recon smart wouldn't just change the resistor pack or connector, they would replace the whole fan unit or stalk controls, so instead of a £12 part your paying for a £150 part

My next question was going to be whether you can fix it yourself. A "contact" sounds easy enough (she says naively! ).

Then again, reading BB2's post.... Honestly though, like I said, I've been here WAY too long, if I couldn't take a day out in Germany to take advantage of the excellent exchange rate, I'd just pay to have it done.

To be honest though, we've found our smart to be really good. It's a 1994 model and we paid 13k for it, we've had it for 4 years and only done repairs twice. (Once because a big, mad dog with a 'thing' against Smarts jumped its garden fence and ran in to our front side panel while we were driving past at 50km/hr )

Puddy

Mercedes are not particularly expensive for parts, try comparing to BMW

we had 2 smarts in the uk (from new), a mk1 and then a new one in 2004 I think, and in that time the quality really went down hill, our first seems well built, lots of standard equipment, good quality plastics etc, but the 2nd was noticeably cheaper even things like the plastics on the window pillars didn't fit properly, to me it looked like they just had 1 standard one as used it on both sides, so it didn't fit properly on either.

Shame we had the common fault engine blow on the first one

Eta but they are a hoot to drive

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Yes, £50 per liter for mobile 1 is a bargain (uk merc dealer)

Here i pay Chf 25.--/litre for Castrol Magnatec A5 5W30 and i need 8 litres each time (official AMG Merc garage)

so what was the outcome?

If not already mentioned there is a smart roadster forum in the uk, they list loads of places where to buy part and also a lot of how to guides n stuff. Give it a few moments to search and maybe if its easy enough you could order the cheap part over from the uk and DIY?

Another thing, they dont make the roadster any more so in time they could start to go up in value (maybe/maybe not). Ive had one for about 5 years its now just stored in one of my garages. Maybe one sunny day i will get it out for a spin, but then ive also been saying that for a coule of years aboutmybike too.

Christopher