smart car breaking down

[danjama]

Hello all my girlfriends mum has a smart car and it it has broken down twice in two weeks. The issue has been resolved by disconnecting the battery for a short period then reconnecting it. Any ideas? There is also a light on the dash but i haven't looked at it yet.

[300bhp/ton]

danjama said:

Hello all my girlfriends mum has a smart car and it it has broken down twice in two weeks. The issue has been resolved by disconnecting the battery for a short period then reconnecting it. Any ideas? There is also a light on the dash but i haven't looked at it yet.

So the issue wasn't resolved, all you did was temporarily solve the symptom.

Without knowing a heck of a lot more info on what it was or wasn't doing, there really is little anyone can advise over the internet, bar going and getting it looked at. The code needs to be read to see what faults the ECU has logged. That'll help diagnose any issues.

[danjama]

Sorry resolved was the wrong word. It was a temporary fix. Surely its an electrical gremlin?

[300bhp/ton]

danjama said:

Surely its an electrical gremlin?

No idea, re-read your op. What info have you actually given to say what it did or what happened. You really couldn't have been more vague if you tried.

[danjama]

Well it was running fine one day but then lost all power and she coasted to a stop. The battery was disconnected for 10 minutes and reconnected and the car started and worked fine for two weeks. Happened again on Saturday and was solved in the same way. Im just trying to establish if this is a common or known fault really. This is all she told me.

[shandyboy]

danjama said:

Well it was running fine one day but then lost all power and she coasted to a stop. The battery was disconnected for 10 minutes and reconnected and the car started and worked fine for two weeks. Happened again on Saturday and was solved in the same way. Im just trying to establish if this is a common or known fault really. This is all she told me.

You mentioned 'a light' on the dashboard - which one? MIL? Oil level? Temperature warning? Fog light lit? Main beams on? Seatbelt not fastened?

You can see that we need more info to be able to offer any meaningful help.

[danjama]

Yes I'm going to look at it in a while and will update.

[shandyboy]

danjama said:

Yes I'm going to look at it in a while and will update.

If you can get access to a code reader you should give that a shot first - it will offer more info on what caused the issue - although I believe some codes are reset with a battery disconnection, some are persistent.

[Gad-Westy]

Which Smart model is it? Our old 451 had an issue where an electrical harness ran a bit too close to the turbo and would get hot and upset the ECU. Stopping and restarting resolved it until it was properly fixed.