Silly faults on a SL 230

[television]

In Sweden a few sill things started to happen on my SL500 the wipers would auto wipe on their own,,lamp failure ana parking brake blinking plus AC turning off.

Colechelle kindly put it on STAR where it had too many faults to print out, the main fault was that the near side SAM would not work via the CAN BUS. I went out today and bought a new one, the old one is a pig to take out being jammed in between the bonnet hinge and air intake box.

I got it out in the end and found the pins of the SAM badly corroded and green,, the chances are is that the old SAM is OK and just the green shorting the signals out.

I will get the new one back in in the morning and we shall see what happens.
The fuse box its self was as new, the SAM gets hot, so I will check the others in the winter, once the contacts have been treated it cant happen again,, I will post back later

 

[colechelle]

Ah now i see the point of the PM just now, that makes sence!!!!!

 

[colechelle]

Any up date malc, is it resolved?????

 

[television]

You were right Cole,, I stressed that I wanted the passenger side for a RHD and they gave me the wrong one,, today I have the correct one to fit.

I opened the old one up and inside it is alive around 5 of the connectors, I could have cleaned it up and treated it,, but once damaged they are touchy things so I am happy to fit the new one. I feel like treating it first, but that would invalidate the guarantee.

I am going to take the others out and treat them, thats for sure.

I think that I caused this fault my self,, when in Sweden I used a high pressure washer on the side of the car,, something one should never do.
Thanks again Cole for your help

 

[The Crooner]

Malcolm

I'm sure your car does not have surface to air missiles, so for the ignorant but eager, please tell me what SAM is!

Tony

 

[television]

SAM = signal acquisition module, this meas that all of the cars electronic parts talk to each other and there is a system called a CAN BUS that carries out both high speed and low speed data checks to see if everything is working. Some cars have one or two SAMs,,mine has three due to the amount of electronics on the car.

So. I have one front left and one front right and a rear SAM. moisture is not welcome in these units as the CAN can send corrupt implausible faults. My car is doing silly things sending up faults that do not exist,, the car was plugged into STAR where it showed the the left hand SAM is not talking to the right SAM. One can take this two ways,,is it that the left hand one is not sending out a CAN signal , or is it that the right hand SAM cannot recognize the left one.

The SAM is a unit where all things like lights, seats mirrors, roof, engine Air con all communicate with each other, Damp can give erroneous readings.

With an oscilloscope one can seen the CAN working and the high speed data lines,,I scoped up the LH SAM and there was no output, so I will fit another one tonight.

At a cost of £235 it is still cheaper for me to check and replace things myself.

Its a pig to work on my car with so much dismantling to get to anything and that is the time killer, or in my case money saver and keeps my post count down here.

Before I started I could look up the circuits in the LH SAM, they are Air Con,wipers, warning lamps and a few more, and all of these things are affected,,, but if this does not cure it , then I move onto the RH one.

The rear sam on a 211 goes down causing high battery drain,,on a 203 the front one goes down where you lose ESP and BAS,,On a 202 the engine fan can stay on all of the time. On a 170 the rear SAM and pump combined gives all kind of alarm faults, in fact most rear SAMs affect faults with the lights and locking along with the indicators, this is because that there is input into the SAM from all of these devices, and they all get muddled up.

Hope this helps

 

[BlackC55]

Dont forget to get it coded after fitting Malc.

 

[television]

Dont forget to get it coded after fitting Malc.

I know 2 nice people and I enjoy a drive out along the South coast It was not possible to download the old one.

 

[television]

New SAM fitted and all the faults that I had before all present so thats good and they can all be taken away by using the object the the warning light shows and the warnings go away that shows that the SAM only needs to be programmed

I have a bonus as well,, the FM reception has often been noisy with HF interference, this has now gone away and its crystal clear,, this would have been caused by the tracking / shorting in the SAM that generates this HF noise, and spread around the car by the CAN BUS

 

[colechelle]

one of those 2 people on the south coast are wondering when we are going to see the above SL for its coding trip?????

 

[television]

one of those 2 people on the south coast are wondering when we are going to see the above SL for its coding trip?????

I would love this to be done as soon as possible.

I spent yesterday taking out the battery converter module and testing, without the comand it spent the night using just 5ma, and that is a low figure.

To get that SAM coded would make me very happy

 

[colechelle]

are you talking about the BCM malc, battery control module??

 

[television]

Yes thats the one. I only did it in view of the other guy saying that it cured his Comand shut down,, Without Comand and the car locked,within 3 mins the current fell to 55MA where that stayed for 20m mins and the car went to sleep and fell to 11ma after an hour it was down to 5 ma where it stayed all night. So there is nothing wrong with the going to sleep sircuits.

There are people on EBay that fix the not going to sleep on Comand 2 so this is a known fault,,and as you know the Comand will not talk toSTAR

 

[television]

I took the car out today and she was fairly happy but she said that she would love to meet a STAR that CAN communicate with her and get her turned on again as she is not sure of what she was got on her.

 

[colechelle]

No prob malc, im off tomorrow if you want to meet and sort it out, can give you that disk then!!!

 

[television]

No prob malc, im off tomorrow if you want to meet and sort it out, can give you that disk then!!!

Yes please just say where and when

 

[Matt45]

For Malcolm

Malcolm,

Just by way of adding to the diagnostics for an R230. Last week I disabled the option for 'locator lighting' and since then the battery has been fine. Not sure if this is associated with the 'light sensor' warning I get but it seems to have done the trick. I still get the lights staying on for 15 seconds after switching the car off [in the dark with auto lights selected, obviously] but now the lights don't come on every time I unlock or lock the car which seems to be saving a lot of energy. Why don't you try it for a few months and see if it makes a difference to yours too. Matt

 

[television]

Malcolm,

Just by way of adding to the diagnostics for an R230. Last week I disabled the option for 'locator lighting' and since then the battery has been fine. Not sure if this is associated with the 'light sensor' warning I get but it seems to have done the trick. I still get the lights staying on for 15 seconds after switching the car off [in the dark with auto lights selected, obviously] but now the lights don't come on every time I unlock or lock the car which seems to be saving a lot of energy. Why don't you try it for a few months and see if it makes a difference to yours too. Matt

Thanks Matt,,, when I get the new SAM coded that will help as at the moment it does not know what its got.

I certainly do not need them coming on every time I stop or park up. I will give it a go.

 

[colechelle]

Yes please just say where and when

Malc, just spoke to Steve, (LULU), i thought it would be nice for the three of us to meet at his house seeing he is in the middle of us, does that work for you???????

 

[television]

Malc, just spoke to Steve, (LULU), i thought it would be nice for the three of us to meet at his house seeing he is in the middle of us, does that work for you???????

That sounds fantastic thank you,,can you please PM or Email his address and the time