Owners should file complaint with FTC. Mercedes can not void warranty because an interval maintenance hasn't been performed unless they can prove that the skipping of that particular maintenance was the reason for it to fail. Same thing happened with warranty void stickers couple years ago and FTC ruled it out.
@@olafschermann1592 I copied this section directly from FTC website: "Tie-In Sales" Provisions Generally, tie-in sales provisions aren’t allowed. These are provisions that state or imply that a consumer must buy or use an item or service from a particular company to keep their warranty coverage. Manufacturer has to prove that customer's negligence and not following the maintenance interval caused the issue in order to void the warranty. In this case it would finding water/rust/corrosion inside the battery pack due to not changing the desiccant filter.
@@olafschermann1592 Right from FTC's guideline: Generally, tie-in sales provisions aren’t allowed. These are provisions that state or imply that a consumer must buy or use an item or service from a particular company to keep their warranty coverage.
Unbelievable they voided the warranty for that, but great you were able to get the car fixed. Also, I'm stoked to see you're in Portland. It's good to know there is someone local to me who is competent at EV repair!
As a happy 2017 fortwo ED cabrio owner (bought new in 2018) I appreciate the content, cautionary tale, and the look inside the battery. Fortunately the only time the OBD port has been used was at the dealership for service and so far I have had good experiences there. Where I live I strive to replace the 12V every 3 years anyway, especially handy for EV life. This reminded me that we are about due for the next service. I'm looking forward to more discontinued EV content!
Alex, you are surely a valuable person in your field. I personally wouldn't buy a EV right now, but if I did I would hope to find someone like you. Mercedes is rotten for doing what they did, glad you could save your customer a lot of money.
I wish this video existed 6 years ago. I mistakenly installed a mileage tracker (which had worked without issue in a 2016 Smart ED) into my 2018 Smart EQ. The 12 volt battery went dead twice before the problem was traced to the tracker. I removed the tracker and haven't had a problem since, although the 12 volt battery was replaced a couple of years later. I'm not sure where I'd be able to get this work done locally. Having to ship my car to Portland would probably be prohibitively expensive. Thanks for your work.
Imagine owning a car and being limited by the amount of times you can turn it on. I'd sell this thing asap and look for a model 3. Thanks for bringing us along on another interesting repair!
Are you kidding? At 9 1/2 years or 149,000 miles I'd turn the car off and on off and on off an on until it bricked the bms. Since they don't service it, brand new battery!
Unbelievable how the car computer is programmed to permanently disable the traction battery when it senses a dead 12 Volt service battery. Compliments for the incredible job! Anthony
Sir .. I seriously respect your knowledge and have followed you since yours time is Southern Ca --- Now that being said as a Brit Born and a US citz living in SoCal alone for 15 Years before pulling out to NV then AZ and now Down Under -- Just my 10cents -- people outside the US who speak English or English as a 2nd language do Not use long complicated words to explain very simple things or words they do not know or use . This is not a "bash" it's a Heads up as you know what you are talking about and people want to understand and learn from you.. Less is more -simple is best and the Vids are "Brill" [brilliant] Keep your You tube's coming ..
Brovo my dear new friend. Job well done. I know a lot of mechanics including myself ( retired ) that wouldn't have the patience to do the wonderful work you do. Nothing personal but being I live in NJ I'm refusing to buy an EV Car but when push comes to shove I'm moving around the corner from your shop so I can het properly maintained and repaired. Keep up the great work and please Please stay Honest no matter how much it may hurt your skill and honesty will make you rich one day
Haaa nice job man 👍 glad I didn’t have to pull them out that way ! Having done a good 75 batteries on Gen4 smarts i would died My Dealer didn’t want to up date the hoist so I used 4 front arm set on the hoist! The Filter Service has been in the service check sheet from day one on all smart ED just like capacity test !When the 453 came out which is the one you showed here we where Original suppose to be able to open them up and change cells and other components but it’s a lawyer liability thing with the manufacturer since the Germans and the Frenchies didn’t want us going in there! So they just get changed out and exchanged and Prorated! good video. I appreciate being able to see inside stuff that I was allowed to take apart.👍
FYI so not to brick the HV Battery the car wants to see a key cycle before 14days of non op keeping a charger on does nothing ! Thats also in the hand book ! Which is the most unread book by most owners
I’m wondering if there are any upgrades or resources to keep the car on the road past the support MBUSA will provide. I assume MBUSA will stop dealer support or the dealer network will end once all the warranties have expired. Legally they don’t need to keep them running ? Correct? Maybe in the future someone can develop a battery swap upgrade and/or ability to keep the systems running
Guy, very interesting video. I have a 2020 eq which is the face-lift model, MB recalled it stating a battery management issue plus everytime i take it for a service they change the particle filler. Your eq looks like the first 453 which was the ED. Anyways great video
The changeover from ED to EQ took place sometime during 2018 to better fit Mercedes model naming conventions (at least here in the U.S.), so only 17' and some early 18' 453 models use the ED name. Not sure if it can be easily seen in the video, but this one being a 2019 is clearly badged as an EQ. Also, here in the U.S., 2019 was the last model year they were sold here, so we never got the 2020 refresh.
I saw the do not put this battery in the trash sticker and it gave me a chuckle. It seems Mercedes wants its customer to do just that. And then of course buy a new Mercedes.
Appreciated the EV Battery BMS Story Lesson. As an advid DIYer with Solar and LiFePO4 builds, and programing BMSs for home solar, looking forward to my future EV; I am interested to know about code readers for EVs. I wonder what code reader you use in your shop, and if any lower cost consumer code readers might be available. Any info. about that would be appreciated. Great Story Lesson. Thanks.
What is the initial value of the cycle counter out of interest, in other words, what's the life-span of a contactor/bms unit? Seems it could be an important thing to check if one ever buys a Smart electric. I guess there is some sense in having it time-expired, aged contactors could have considerably more resistance and generate a lot of heat given the currents involved, but measuring said resistance and temperature would be a much better way of handling it.
I think it's 300,000 cycles. WAY more cycles than the contactors should ever actually see in the normal life of the car. Why they chose to give it arbitrary limit, who knows? For some perspective, the contactors cycle every time the car gets turned on. Even if you drove it 200,000mi, with an average trip length of 5mi, that's only 40,000 contactor (on/off) cycles. Add in additional cycles from charging, even it it was plugged in after every single round trip (so once for every "two drives"), that's still only a total of 60,000 cycles. I assume that it's counting on then off as 1 cycle, but even on AND off count as their own cycles, that's still only 120,000 cycles total. This car only had a little over 20k mi, clearly not anywhere near enough to have ever caused the contactors to "actually" run out of cycles, the issue is that the OBDii mileage tracking device caused the BMS to glitch the contactor cycle counter to 0, presumably due to some sort of disturbance to the CANbus.
Have you looked into the OBC failure issues on the 2017-2019 cars? My 2017 OBC failed. One of the two. Apparently there are two at 3.xkwh each. If I understood correctly. Anyways the repair is $8000 plus my battery went bad while sitting at the dealer. MBUSA covered the battery replacement. It took MBUSA and the dealer 11 months to get the car back in the road
Alex, I am wondering if you could walk me through the swap out of the 12V battery on a smart. I want to ensure I don't brick the HV battery. I also need to swap out the desiccant filter and I would need a way to "inform" the car that the filter had been changed. I have to tell the computer that the "service" on the Smart has been completed. Also, if I found a Smart EV with a bricked battery would you be able to remotely run through the "un-bricking" of the battery? If so how much would you charge me? I'm in Canada so there are very few service options for the Smart now.
Hi Chris, I think I responded to an email from you about a week ago. There's no special procedure to swapping the 12v battery, just swap it out like any other car. As far as resetting the service interval for the desiccant cartridge, there's no way to "tell" the car it's been swapped, it's simply a service screen reset (much like an oil life reset on an ICE). On the ED4/EQ models, it's as simple as navigating to the service interval screen on the IC, then just press and hold the OK button on the steering wheel until it says it's been reset, ED3 and earlier models are a little bit more tricky, but it's just a combination of key cycles and button presses. In terms of "un-bricking" the HV battery, that depends on what the actual failure mode is that caused it to get bricked in the first place... If it's a contactor counter issue like I dealt with in this video, then the steps are basically as seen here (I'm considering "buying" the reprogramming procedure for this repair, as seemingly nobody else in North America does it, so in the future, I might be able to perform that service if you sent the BMS here). Alternatively, if the issue is that the BMS has gone into "junkyard mode" and has started self discharging the pack, then time is of the essence, as if the HV battery gets too far discharged, it *cannot* be recovered. I'm happy to give some quick tips if needed, but I'm not in the business of "repair consulting", so you're on you own in terms of actually doing the work... But there's plenty of forum posts and videos out there on these subjects with lots of useful info.
To get them on the lift, pull it forward until the front arms will go under the car. Move the front arms under the car but leave the lift rear arms out. Reverse until you are about to run into the front arms. Rotate the rear lift arms under the car. Now you need to center the cars and move the lift arms into the correct position.
Still not enough space to do that (at least on my lifts). Also, the positioning of the normal rear lift point actually gets in the way of removing the battery. If I do more of these in the future, I may need to invest in some "wheel lift" adapters pick it up from the tires.
@@AlexEVRepair Interesting. Would a pinchweld lift adapter provide enough clearance on your lift? The ones we have are a much smaller profile than the standard lift pads.
I watched this video and would like to offer a couple of points. 1): If you have more than one floor lift you can probably get extra short arms to lift that tiny car. 2): A straight drive on lift like used for wheel alignments would get that tiny car up to work it very easily. 3): When you opened the battery pack you can see where the desicant is located. I would have replaced it since you are in there already. I can just imagine the cost for a dealer to drop the battery ever 2 years to change out that desicant pack.
The dessicant cartridge can be replaced without dropping the battery (it unscrews from the bottom). And like I mentioned, there's really no reason to "have to" replace it, just an arbitrary requirement that Mercedes made up. As far as a drive on lift goes, the battery would be too wide to fit between the "runways", so not possible to remove it that way either. I specifically don't have a 4 post lift simply for that reason, they aren't of much use to me for these kind of jobs... I do have another 2 post lift that I could have swapped the arms off of, but then I would have been unable to use the it for anything else while the car was on it...
I know on a b class you could technicly change the variant coding for the bms via the OBD port. I dont think it works in aftersales tho (permissions :/) so if Mercedes/Smart does not provide that route your stuck with a big paperweight.
I think the lesson learned from this is not to buy a SmartEQ EV, they basically don't have a warranty, It's ridiculous that contactors have a hard limit on the number of uses.
Why not take the tires off to get the clearness you need? Also when taking the battery pack out I wonder if a transmission jack would work better. I also wonder if a Technical college could invest in a machine to reprogram the BMS? Sounds like a new career choice for an automotive/electronic technician.
Greetings from Germany & nice work! Besides your valuable tipps, here's another one: As the car is basically a Renault, using ddt4all, you can actually read the remaining counter for the contactors. So, buyers beware 😉 (I'm driving a 2017 ED myself)
So the issue for this customer that caused battery to fail was the insurance OBD dongle? What number does the counter start at ? 10,000 key cycles ? 20,000 key cycles? When it gets to 0 then that’s it? BMS done? Trying to understand how that works. Does it countdown on its own even without the OBD device ? Would it not be easier to just buy a new BMC from dealer? Also. What was the name of German company that reprogrammed BMC ?
The BMS starts with a value that is really high (I think 300,000 cycles), which would make it extremely unlikely for it to ever "time out" on its own during the life of the car. But of course then that begs the question, why even have a cycle countdown at all? Only the engineers at Mercedes (or maube Renault, which I'll get to later) could answer that question... The issue here was that the OBDii dongle must somehow disrupt the CANbus, which causes that counter to become glitched and set to zero remaining cycles. Again, why it's programmed to have a seemingly "arbitrary" limit to start with is anyone's guess... A replacement BMS simply isn't available from Mercedes, as they don't consider any of the internal parts of the battery to be serviceable (apart from the dessicant cartridge, which unscrews from the bottom). Since Mercedes doesnt consider the battery to be servicable, that obviously means they dont sell any of the internal parts. However, the battery and other drivetrain components are shared with the Renault Twizy, so some of the internal components CAN be purchased from Renault, such as the contactors. However, I don't think you can buy a BMS (and I suspect it would probably have different firmware than the Smart anyways). The company that did the programming in this case is called Smart-emotion, but there are at least one or two other companies in Europe that do it as well. If I end up getting any more interest from folks with similar issues, I'll be looking into seeing if I can figure out a way to do the reset myself. In this case though, for cost/expediency response, it made sense to outsource that part of the process.
@@AlexEVRepair yeah. Would be worth it to try and see how they do the reset. They want €1400 so it’s good to keep that “ in house “. I looked up the A… part number in google and you are correct. Nothing came up. I wonder what company actually manufactured the BMC. Looks like it’s made by HELLA.
@@AlexEVRepair did you bleed coolant system with Xentry after you put battery back in? Was any adaptations required after programmed BMS was installed?
Since I clamped the lines off, very little coolant was lost, and not very much air introduced into the system, so I was actually able to bleed the system without using Xentry. No adaptations/coding required for the BMS upon installation. Everything in the video is exactly how the process went!
IMhO: This Story is a Black Eye for Mercedes EVs. I dream of, and would love to someday see an open source group development of EV BMS with adapter plugs that could be put on any, or most EVs as a replacement to the stock BMS. Would also love see that on the market with full kits for converting suitable fuel autos to EVs.
There are solutions that exist for the BMSs in some batteries to be controlled for use in conversions for other applications. Pretty much every automaker does it differently, so there's not really a "one size fits all" solution... If you look on openinverter or github, there are some open source options. There are also of course off the shelf "for profit" solutions from other sources as well, for anything ranging from Nissan LEAF to Tesla batteries.
So you would have to go through that whole procedure to change the desiccant filter. Why isn't it accessible from outside the battery? It must be expensive to replace it; I wonder if Mercedes actually change it or just tick it on the service sheet.
It is accessible from the outside, just unscrews form the bottom. I know that on the B-Class ED/B250e, Mercedes actually would do it for free (though sometimes dealers didn't quite seem to get the memo on that). Not sure if that applies to the Smart EQ though.
Hi Alex I need your help I have in my service Smart fortwo 453eq i have problem with BMS unit. Do you have maybe contact where is reset your BMS unit? Thank you
Not sure if I responded to an email from you or not (I had someone email me and ask a few days ago), but the company I sent the BMS to for programming was Smart Emotion in Germany. Here's a link to that specific service on their website: www.smart-emotion.de/shop/product/12-e18-1-bms-reset-p18051c-bricked-bms/
I wonder whether the industry will find a way to avoid the need for cooling batteries. The fewer aux systems we have in these vehicles, the more modular and maintenance free they can become. I don't know what I mean.
The Nissan LEAF and some other EVs don't have any battery cooling, however, that leads to other issues in the longer term; particularly accelerated battery degradation. Lack of cooling also of course significantly limits fast charging capabilities.
Love your content. I live in the Memphis TN area and would love to know if you or some of viewers know of anyone I my area that does what you do. I’m retired now and would love to be involved. I been driving EV’s since 2007. I don’t need a job. I been ASE master certified for over 30 years. Also, I wish you would learn to wear surgical gloves when you work on vehicles. You won’t believe what a difference it will make your older like I am.
Just watched your Ford Focus video (1 & 2) where you made a piece on your 3D printer. Why don't you make the piece you broke and could only replace through a junkyard? I bet you could sell quite a few! Your Smart car could not be the only one with a broken piece!!
People need to start waking up, this is all being done on purpose, a: because we have all at one time or another, bent over and taken it, allowing this kind of behavior, and b: because we have all chosen to do this at one time or another, we have emboldened these companies into allowing this kind of behavior. We, as a whole, need to stand up, and stop taking this lying down....
Interesting video - don't own nor do I want to own and EV just an inquisitive engineer :) ..... Problem with making stuff easy to take appart & watertight without using silicone mastic ... increased chance of water ingress which they have obviously mitigated by requiring the frequent desicant service. It's easy to forget that not everything that seems like a cop out has been done to screw the consumer. bad if the manufacturer hasnt highlighted the requirement to do so though.
Impressive caverneering work in 6 inches of space. Its like an MRI machine. Did you change the Dessicant filter after all that? 😢 What a lousy trick that is, AND you have to take the Battery out every two years!
The car didn't drive, so that would be a negative... Not to mention extremely sketchy. If I had wheel support adapters (that "cradle" the wheels in place), then that would have worked. Those run about $1600 for a set though, so not worth it for just one job... If I have more service requests from Smart owners in the future though, then it would be a worthwhile investment.
Very obviously MB don't want to manufacture and sell EVs if there is hidden warranty bomb and selfdistroy button in BMS but blame on also to insurance company if their OBD plug and software brick vehicles.
This filter sounds like a liquid damage indicator in a phone.. The contractor countdown planned obsolescence, 5G OBD bricking the car is next level. The battery price is suspiciously high, next they'll start glueing the pack to the chassis because reasons. The iCar.
Whoa! Back up the bus. You're telling us that Mercedes wants you to have the battery pulled, replace a filter or void battery warranty? Does the owner have to pay for this service? And!! could the BMS be fooled by applying +12V directly to the contactor as needed to operate the car?
The dessicant cartridge can be changed without dropping the battery (it unscrews from the bottom). And no, you couldn't get the car to run by applying power to the contactors. While that would close the contactors, the BMS would almost certainly start throwing alerts for welded contactors or something like that, and it likely wouldn't allow the inverter or anything else on the HV to operate of course.
@@AlexEVRepair Thanks... Damn, I couldn't cough up the price for labor every two years to drop a battery pack to swap out a filter. Glad to hear you can get it without do that. Too bad about not being able to fool the BMS with closing the contactor externally. Any idea how many 'cycles' the BMS will allow before hitting zero? Sounds like an issue that certainly shouldn't been in the firmware to begin with. I was thinking of getting a 2017 Smart EV, but couldn't find a dealership/private repair shop that would even look at the thing. Not even the Mercedes dealers! I'm glad I didn't buy it.
I think the cycle count is something crazy high, like 300,000 cycles, WAY more than the contactors would ever likely see. However, simply putting an "arbitrary" limit still just seems dumb no matter how you slice it.
Two things.. Presumably the contacts in the contactor relay degrade and they set a limit to reduce the risk of fire? Just resetting the BMS and not replacing the contactor on an old car might be risky? Or do they reprogram the BMS with an estimate of the number of cycles used? The other issue is the seal on the lid of the battery. Surprised its not a liquid sealer to reduce risk of water getting in?
This car only has ~20k mi, so not nearly enough cycles to have damage from "normal wear and tear" on the contactors. As far as the battery lid goes, it has a molded on silicone rubber seal around the perimeter.
The HV disconnect is located underneath, just forward of the right rear tire. Worth noting, this is an HV system disconnect, and not a first responder loop. In fact, not all EVs actually have HV disconnects (such as Teslas), but rather only first responder/maintenance loops that create an open circuit in the HV interlock loop, and disable the main contactors.
And here is the worst part. Let's go ahead and say you were towing. A lightweight trailer and we are not talking like heavy amounts of poundage. We're talking like maybe a small trailer going to a farmer's market. The breaking system for those trailers. Is connects to the same odb2 port bye car
Technically, that only applies to Daimler AG (aka Mercedes) vehicles. No other OEM that I know of has any kind of stipulation like this... I'm also pretty sure that in this case, denying the warranty over not changing the desiccant cartridge is a violation of the Magnusson Moss Warranty Act.
Owners should file complaint with FTC. Mercedes can not void warranty because an interval maintenance hasn't been performed unless they can prove that the skipping of that particular maintenance was the reason for it to fail. Same thing happened with warranty void stickers couple years ago and FTC ruled it out.
Yep, I totally agree.
Moraly you are right - from a legal perspective sadly not
@@olafschermann1592 I copied this section directly from FTC website:
"Tie-In Sales" Provisions
Generally, tie-in sales provisions aren’t allowed. These are provisions that state or imply that a consumer must buy or use an item or service from a particular company to keep their warranty coverage.
Manufacturer has to prove that customer's negligence and not following the maintenance interval caused the issue in order to void the warranty. In this case it would finding water/rust/corrosion inside the battery pack due to not changing the desiccant filter.
@@olafschermann1592 Right from FTC's guideline: Generally, tie-in sales provisions aren’t allowed. These are provisions that state or imply that a consumer must buy or use an item or service from a particular company to keep their warranty coverage.
@@olafschermann1592 Please stop spreading misinformation if you don't have a clue on what you are talking about.
People who do what you do, at this early part of the EV age, are truly heroic.
Unbelievable they voided the warranty for that, but great you were able to get the car fixed.
Also, I'm stoked to see you're in Portland. It's good to know there is someone local to me who is competent at EV repair!
As a happy 2017 fortwo ED cabrio owner (bought new in 2018) I appreciate the content, cautionary tale, and the look inside the battery. Fortunately the only time the OBD port has been used was at the dealership for service and so far I have had good experiences there. Where I live I strive to replace the 12V every 3 years anyway, especially handy for EV life. This reminded me that we are about due for the next service. I'm looking forward to more discontinued EV content!
Alex, you are surely a valuable person in your field. I personally wouldn't buy a EV right now, but if I did I would hope to find someone like you. Mercedes is rotten for doing what they did, glad you could save your customer a lot of money.
I wish this video existed 6 years ago. I mistakenly installed a mileage tracker (which had worked without issue in a 2016 Smart ED) into my 2018 Smart EQ. The 12 volt battery went dead twice before the problem was traced to the tracker. I removed the tracker and haven't had a problem since, although the 12 volt battery was replaced a couple of years later. I'm not sure where I'd be able to get this work done locally. Having to ship my car to Portland would probably be prohibitively expensive. Thanks for your work.
Great video, I'm surprised how calm and positive you are. I'm saddend to see a German company ripping off their customers. Again..
Ripping their clients off is a feature, not a bug with German car companies.
Imagine owning a car and being limited by the amount of times you can turn it on. I'd sell this thing asap and look for a model 3. Thanks for bringing us along on another interesting repair!
Elon von Braunshirt wagen. NEVER!
Are you kidding? At 9 1/2 years or 149,000 miles I'd turn the car off and on off and on off an on until it bricked the bms. Since they don't service it, brand new battery!
The Cycles count to zero is set to 300.000! That´s around 300 Years at normal usage
@@AndreasGoettschehow do you know it’s set to 300k?
@@E39M5SPEED i can´t release links here. pm me!
Unbelievable how the car computer is programmed to permanently disable the traction battery when it senses a dead 12 Volt service battery.
Compliments for the incredible job!
Anthony
Sir .. I seriously respect your knowledge and have followed you since yours time is Southern Ca --- Now that being said as a Brit Born and a US citz living in SoCal alone for 15 Years before pulling out to NV then AZ and now Down Under -- Just my 10cents -- people outside the US who speak English or English as a 2nd language do Not use long complicated words to explain very simple things or words they do not know or use . This is not a "bash" it's a Heads up as you know what you are talking about and people want to understand and learn from you.. Less is more -simple is best and the Vids are "Brill" [brilliant]
Keep your You tube's coming ..
Thank you ever so much for your time and work,, 💖🙏💖
I hate working on my back with no room to operate. I'd have found a way to get the vehicle onto the lift. Great job, and an interesting video.
Some wheel lift adapters sure would have been handy for this job, haha.
Brovo my dear new friend.
Job well done. I know a lot of mechanics including myself ( retired ) that wouldn't have the patience to do the wonderful work you do. Nothing personal but being I live in NJ I'm refusing to buy an EV Car but when push comes to shove I'm moving around the corner from your shop so I can het properly maintained and repaired. Keep up the great work and please Please stay Honest no matter how much it may hurt your skill and honesty will make you rich one day
Haaa nice job man 👍 glad I didn’t have to pull them out that way ! Having done a good 75 batteries on Gen4 smarts i would died My Dealer didn’t want to up date the hoist so I used 4 front arm set on the hoist! The Filter Service has been in the service check sheet from day one on all smart ED just like capacity test !When the 453 came out which is the one you showed here we where Original suppose to be able to open them up and change cells and other components but it’s a lawyer liability thing with the manufacturer since the Germans and the Frenchies didn’t want us going in there! So they just get changed out and exchanged and
Prorated! good video. I appreciate being able to see inside stuff that I was allowed to take apart.👍
FYI so not to brick the HV Battery the car wants to see a key cycle before 14days of non op keeping a charger on does nothing ! Thats also in the hand book ! Which is the most unread book by most owners
Disabling the vehicle for an arbitrary reason with nothing wrong should be illegal.
I’m wondering if there are any upgrades or resources to keep the car on the road past the support MBUSA will provide. I assume MBUSA will stop dealer support or the dealer network will end once all the warranties have expired. Legally they don’t need to keep them running ? Correct? Maybe in the future someone can develop a battery swap upgrade and/or ability to keep the systems running
Guy, very interesting video. I have a 2020 eq which is the face-lift model, MB recalled it stating a battery management issue plus everytime i take it for a service they change the particle filler. Your eq looks like the first 453 which was the ED. Anyways great video
The changeover from ED to EQ took place sometime during 2018 to better fit Mercedes model naming conventions (at least here in the U.S.), so only 17' and some early 18' 453 models use the ED name. Not sure if it can be easily seen in the video, but this one being a 2019 is clearly badged as an EQ. Also, here in the U.S., 2019 was the last model year they were sold here, so we never got the 2020 refresh.
I saw the do not put this battery in the trash sticker and it gave me a chuckle. It seems Mercedes wants its customer to do just that. And then of course buy a new Mercedes.
That desiccant filter looks to be inside the battery assembly surely its accessible for replacement other than a battery removal every two years.
It unscrews from the bottom of the battery.
I like the modularity!
It's not a glitch it's a feature - Mercedes
The Extinction Rebellion Tesla is really cool too 😎 🌎
Cool repair
Appreciated the EV Battery BMS Story Lesson. As an advid DIYer with Solar and LiFePO4 builds, and programing BMSs for home solar, looking forward to my future EV; I am interested to know about code readers for EVs. I wonder what code reader you use in your shop, and if any lower cost consumer code readers might be available. Any info. about that would be appreciated. Great Story Lesson. Thanks.
Such a sick video!
WOW….good job! Maybe an upgraded HV battery from EV clinic & a LifePO4 12.8v battery for the POS SLA? 😅
junkyard mode!?!? - love the videos! keep 'em coming :)
What is the initial value of the cycle counter out of interest, in other words, what's the life-span of a contactor/bms unit? Seems it could be an important thing to check if one ever buys a Smart electric.
I guess there is some sense in having it time-expired, aged contactors could have considerably more resistance and generate a lot of heat given the currents involved, but measuring said resistance and temperature would be a much better way of handling it.
I think it's 300,000 cycles. WAY more cycles than the contactors should ever actually see in the normal life of the car. Why they chose to give it arbitrary limit, who knows?
For some perspective, the contactors cycle every time the car gets turned on. Even if you drove it 200,000mi, with an average trip length of 5mi, that's only 40,000 contactor (on/off) cycles. Add in additional cycles from charging, even it it was plugged in after every single round trip (so once for every "two drives"), that's still only a total of 60,000 cycles. I assume that it's counting on then off as 1 cycle, but even on AND off count as their own cycles, that's still only 120,000 cycles total.
This car only had a little over 20k mi, clearly not anywhere near enough to have ever caused the contactors to "actually" run out of cycles, the issue is that the OBDii mileage tracking device caused the BMS to glitch the contactor cycle counter to 0, presumably due to some sort of disturbance to the CANbus.
Have you looked into the OBC failure issues on the 2017-2019 cars?
My 2017 OBC failed. One of the two. Apparently there are two at 3.xkwh each. If I understood correctly. Anyways the repair is $8000 plus my battery went bad while sitting at the dealer. MBUSA covered the battery replacement. It took MBUSA and the dealer 11 months to get the car back in the road
I've read about DC/DC failures, but haven't seen anything about OBC failures. Maybe one day I'll encounter one...
@@AlexEVRepairthere are posts about it in the FB group and one of the smart USA forums.
Alex, I am wondering if you could walk me through the swap out of the 12V battery on a smart. I want to ensure I don't brick the HV battery. I also need to swap out the desiccant filter and I would need a way to "inform" the car that the filter had been changed. I have to tell the computer that the "service" on the Smart has been completed.
Also, if I found a Smart EV with a bricked battery would you be able to remotely run through the "un-bricking" of the battery? If so how much would you charge me? I'm in Canada so there are very few service options for the Smart now.
Hi Chris, I think I responded to an email from you about a week ago. There's no special procedure to swapping the 12v battery, just swap it out like any other car. As far as resetting the service interval for the desiccant cartridge, there's no way to "tell" the car it's been swapped, it's simply a service screen reset (much like an oil life reset on an ICE). On the ED4/EQ models, it's as simple as navigating to the service interval screen on the IC, then just press and hold the OK button on the steering wheel until it says it's been reset, ED3 and earlier models are a little bit more tricky, but it's just a combination of key cycles and button presses.
In terms of "un-bricking" the HV battery, that depends on what the actual failure mode is that caused it to get bricked in the first place... If it's a contactor counter issue like I dealt with in this video, then the steps are basically as seen here (I'm considering "buying" the reprogramming procedure for this repair, as seemingly nobody else in North America does it, so in the future, I might be able to perform that service if you sent the BMS here). Alternatively, if the issue is that the BMS has gone into "junkyard mode" and has started self discharging the pack, then time is of the essence, as if the HV battery gets too far discharged, it *cannot* be recovered. I'm happy to give some quick tips if needed, but I'm not in the business of "repair consulting", so you're on you own in terms of actually doing the work... But there's plenty of forum posts and videos out there on these subjects with lots of useful info.
To get them on the lift, pull it forward until the front arms will go under the car. Move the front arms under the car but leave the lift rear arms out. Reverse until you are about to run into the front arms. Rotate the rear lift arms under the car. Now you need to center the cars and move the lift arms into the correct position.
Still not enough space to do that (at least on my lifts). Also, the positioning of the normal rear lift point actually gets in the way of removing the battery. If I do more of these in the future, I may need to invest in some "wheel lift" adapters pick it up from the tires.
@@AlexEVRepair Interesting. Would a pinchweld lift adapter provide enough clearance on your lift? The ones we have are a much smaller profile than the standard lift pads.
I watched this video and would like to offer a couple of points. 1): If you have more than one floor lift you can probably get extra short arms to lift that tiny car. 2): A straight drive on lift like used for wheel alignments would get that tiny car up to work it very easily. 3): When you opened the battery pack you can see where the desicant is located. I would have replaced it since you are in there already. I can just imagine the cost for a dealer to drop the battery ever 2 years to change out that desicant pack.
The dessicant cartridge can be replaced without dropping the battery (it unscrews from the bottom). And like I mentioned, there's really no reason to "have to" replace it, just an arbitrary requirement that Mercedes made up.
As far as a drive on lift goes, the battery would be too wide to fit between the "runways", so not possible to remove it that way either. I specifically don't have a 4 post lift simply for that reason, they aren't of much use to me for these kind of jobs... I do have another 2 post lift that I could have swapped the arms off of, but then I would have been unable to use the it for anything else while the car was on it...
My 2010 RAV4 Limited also has the reverse camera view in the rear view mirror :)
Awesome work, thanks 4 sharing. Looks like a steel, buying smart cars with dead batteries.
Just make sure its not one with a REALLY bricked battery, as those car be unrecoverable if they go into junkyard mode for too long!
I know on a b class you could technicly change the variant coding for the bms via the OBD port.
I dont think it works in aftersales tho (permissions :/) so if Mercedes/Smart does not provide that route your stuck with a big paperweight.
what is the name of the company that did the reset ?? ty
I think the lesson learned from this is not to buy a SmartEQ EV, they basically don't have a warranty, It's ridiculous that contactors have a hard limit on the number of uses.
Great work. Where are you located
My shop is located in Portland Oregon (address and contact info in the video description).
Why not take the tires off to get the clearness you need? Also when taking the battery pack out I wonder if a transmission jack would work better. I also wonder if a Technical college could invest in a machine to reprogram the BMS? Sounds like a new career choice for an automotive/electronic technician.
Greetings from Germany & nice work! Besides your valuable tipps, here's another one: As the car is basically a Renault, using ddt4all, you can actually read the remaining counter for the contactors. So, buyers beware 😉 (I'm driving a 2017 ED myself)
hey dude do you know if the 2016 smarts fortwo electrics have this countdown timer? mine has 34 thousand miles on it.
@@brianwillis1577AFAIK the 451 does not have this. It is mentioned IIRC by EV Clinic from Zagreb
Where in ddt4all? I have it but need to know where to read out
So the issue for this customer that caused battery to fail was the insurance OBD dongle?
What number does the counter start at ? 10,000 key cycles ? 20,000 key cycles? When it gets to 0 then that’s it? BMS done?
Trying to understand how that works.
Does it countdown on its own even without the OBD device ?
Would it not be easier to just buy a new BMC from dealer?
Also. What was the name of German company that reprogrammed BMC ?
The BMS starts with a value that is really high (I think 300,000 cycles), which would make it extremely unlikely for it to ever "time out" on its own during the life of the car. But of course then that begs the question, why even have a cycle countdown at all? Only the engineers at Mercedes (or maube Renault, which I'll get to later) could answer that question...
The issue here was that the OBDii dongle must somehow disrupt the CANbus, which causes that counter to become glitched and set to zero remaining cycles. Again, why it's programmed to have a seemingly "arbitrary" limit to start with is anyone's guess...
A replacement BMS simply isn't available from Mercedes, as they don't consider any of the internal parts of the battery to be serviceable (apart from the dessicant cartridge, which unscrews from the bottom). Since Mercedes doesnt consider the battery to be servicable, that obviously means they dont sell any of the internal parts. However, the battery and other drivetrain components are shared with the Renault Twizy, so some of the internal components CAN be purchased from Renault, such as the contactors. However, I don't think you can buy a BMS (and I suspect it would probably have different firmware than the Smart anyways).
The company that did the programming in this case is called Smart-emotion, but there are at least one or two other companies in Europe that do it as well. If I end up getting any more interest from folks with similar issues, I'll be looking into seeing if I can figure out a way to do the reset myself. In this case though, for cost/expediency response, it made sense to outsource that part of the process.
@@AlexEVRepair yeah. Would be worth it to try and see how they do the reset. They want €1400 so it’s good to keep that “ in house “.
I looked up the A… part number in google and you are correct. Nothing came up. I wonder what company actually manufactured the BMC.
Looks like it’s made by HELLA.
@@AlexEVRepair did you bleed coolant system with Xentry after you put battery back in?
Was any adaptations required after programmed BMS was installed?
Since I clamped the lines off, very little coolant was lost, and not very much air introduced into the system, so I was actually able to bleed the system without using Xentry. No adaptations/coding required for the BMS upon installation. Everything in the video is exactly how the process went!
@@AlexEVRepair so you just connected BMC and that’s it. It worked without xentry adaptations ?
Cars are becoming like software, you don't own them, you rent them.
Just like our money 💰
Did you change the desiccant pack?????
Where the drive and the passenger fit inside the car?
IMhO: This Story is a Black Eye for Mercedes EVs. I dream of, and would love to someday see an open source group development of EV BMS with adapter plugs that could be put on any, or most EVs as a replacement to the stock BMS. Would also love see that on the market with full kits for converting suitable fuel autos to EVs.
There are solutions that exist for the BMSs in some batteries to be controlled for use in conversions for other applications. Pretty much every automaker does it differently, so there's not really a "one size fits all" solution... If you look on openinverter or github, there are some open source options. There are also of course off the shelf "for profit" solutions from other sources as well, for anything ranging from Nissan LEAF to Tesla batteries.
So you would have to go through that whole procedure to change the desiccant filter. Why isn't it accessible from outside the battery? It must be expensive to replace it; I wonder if Mercedes actually change it or just tick it on the service sheet.
It is accessible from the outside, just unscrews form the bottom. I know that on the B-Class ED/B250e, Mercedes actually would do it for free (though sometimes dealers didn't quite seem to get the memo on that). Not sure if that applies to the Smart EQ though.
It’s $70 from the dealer. Takes 2 minutes to replace.
Moral of the story , don't buy junk the company won't stand behind.
Hi Alex
I need your help
I have in my service Smart fortwo 453eq i have problem with BMS unit.
Do you have maybe contact where is reset your BMS unit?
Thank you
Not sure if I responded to an email from you or not (I had someone email me and ask a few days ago), but the company I sent the BMS to for programming was Smart Emotion in Germany. Here's a link to that specific service on their website: www.smart-emotion.de/shop/product/12-e18-1-bms-reset-p18051c-bricked-bms/
Great job!
They did same thing to me, I changed the descant, but not with their product. Battery was 2.5 years old only 20k on battery
Hi, I am from Germany. Can you tell me who resets the counter?
I had the counter reset by Smart Emotion.
@@AlexEVRepair what did they charge for the reset?
About 800 Euros.
www.smart-emotion.de/shop/product/12-e18-1-bms-reset-p18051c-bricked-bms/
post pictures of the BMC board showing the white print on the chips.
Maybe you are lucky and it's simple external eeprom
Nice work!
What’s a desiccant filter?
It absorbs moisture, much like the desiccant packet you might find in a package of dried food.
I wonder whether the industry will find a way to avoid the need for cooling batteries. The fewer aux systems we have in these vehicles, the more modular and maintenance free they can become. I don't know what I mean.
The Nissan LEAF and some other EVs don't have any battery cooling, however, that leads to other issues in the longer term; particularly accelerated battery degradation. Lack of cooling also of course significantly limits fast charging capabilities.
Love your content. I live in the Memphis TN area and would love to know if you or some of viewers know of anyone I my area that does what you do. I’m retired now and would love to be involved. I been driving EV’s since 2007. I don’t need a job. I been ASE master certified for over 30 years. Also, I wish you would learn to wear surgical gloves when you work on vehicles. You won’t believe what a difference it will make your older like I am.
Very interesting video. Shame on you Mercedes. Why would you create a way to trash your own vehicles without telling the buyers about it.
Just watched your Ford Focus video (1 & 2) where you made a piece on your 3D printer. Why don't you make the piece you broke and could only replace through a junkyard? I bet you could sell quite a few! Your Smart car could not be the only one with a broken piece!!
People need to start waking up, this is all being done on purpose, a: because we have all at one time or another, bent over and taken it, allowing this kind of behavior, and b: because we have all chosen to do this at one time or another, we have emboldened these companies into allowing this kind of behavior. We, as a whole, need to stand up, and stop taking this lying down....
Interesting video - don't own nor do I want to own and EV just an inquisitive engineer :) ..... Problem with making stuff easy to take appart & watertight without using silicone mastic ... increased chance of water ingress which they have obviously mitigated by requiring the frequent desicant service. It's easy to forget that not everything that seems like a cop out has been done to screw the consumer. bad if the manufacturer hasnt highlighted the requirement to do so though.
Impressive caverneering work in 6 inches of space. Its like an MRI machine.
Did you change the Dessicant filter after all that? 😢
What a lousy trick that is, AND you have to take the Battery out every two years!
The desiccant cartridge can be changed without removing the battery (it unscrews from the bottom).
Looks as if you could have used a floor jack to lift up the rear of the car and swing the lift arms past the tires and use the lift.
The arms still would have been too long, and would have been lifting on the battery itself (no bueno!).
@@AlexEVRepair Good point. Could you have driven the car onto the lift pads and lifted it by the wheels?
The car didn't drive, so that would be a negative... Not to mention extremely sketchy.
If I had wheel support adapters (that "cradle" the wheels in place), then that would have worked. Those run about $1600 for a set though, so not worth it for just one job... If I have more service requests from Smart owners in the future though, then it would be a worthwhile investment.
@@AlexEVRepair That's crazy expensive, you could probably have someone fab some for a few hundred.
Very obviously MB don't want to manufacture and sell EVs if there is hidden warranty bomb and selfdistroy button in BMS but blame on also to insurance company if their OBD plug and software brick vehicles.
This filter sounds like a liquid damage indicator in a phone..
The contractor countdown planned obsolescence, 5G OBD bricking the car is next level.
The battery price is suspiciously high, next they'll start glueing the pack to the chassis because reasons.
The iCar.
Whoa! Back up the bus. You're telling us that Mercedes wants you to have the battery pulled, replace a filter or void battery warranty? Does the owner have to pay for this service? And!! could the BMS be fooled by applying +12V directly to the contactor as needed to operate the car?
The dessicant cartridge can be changed without dropping the battery (it unscrews from the bottom).
And no, you couldn't get the car to run by applying power to the contactors. While that would close the contactors, the BMS would almost certainly start throwing alerts for welded contactors or something like that, and it likely wouldn't allow the inverter or anything else on the HV to operate of course.
@@AlexEVRepair Thanks... Damn, I couldn't cough up the price for labor every two years to drop a battery pack to swap out a filter. Glad to hear you can get it without do that. Too bad about not being able to fool the BMS with closing the contactor externally. Any idea how many 'cycles' the BMS will allow before hitting zero? Sounds like an issue that certainly shouldn't been in the firmware to begin with. I was thinking of getting a 2017 Smart EV, but couldn't find a dealership/private repair shop that would even look at the thing. Not even the Mercedes dealers! I'm glad I didn't buy it.
I think the cycle count is something crazy high, like 300,000 cycles, WAY more than the contactors would ever likely see. However, simply putting an "arbitrary" limit still just seems dumb no matter how you slice it.
Two things.. Presumably the contacts in the contactor relay degrade and they set a limit to reduce the risk of fire? Just resetting the BMS and not replacing the contactor on an old car might be risky? Or do they reprogram the BMS with an estimate of the number of cycles used?
The other issue is the seal on the lid of the battery. Surprised its not a liquid sealer to reduce risk of water getting in?
This car only has ~20k mi, so not nearly enough cycles to have damage from "normal wear and tear" on the contactors.
As far as the battery lid goes, it has a molded on silicone rubber seal around the perimeter.
I feel like it’s insurance company should pay for this because it’s their fault for making him put that GPS bull in his car
W
First responder approaching the (not so) Smart EV: Where is the HV disconnect??? Honestly, how is that even legal ?
The HV disconnect is located underneath, just forward of the right rear tire. Worth noting, this is an HV system disconnect, and not a first responder loop. In fact, not all EVs actually have HV disconnects (such as Teslas), but rather only first responder/maintenance loops that create an open circuit in the HV interlock loop, and disable the main contactors.
@AlexEVRepair Ok but where is the first responder look on this car?
Looks like Mercedes only implemented the HV disconnect rather than also having a cut loop.
rk.mb-qr.com/en/453.39/
And here is the worst part. Let's go ahead and say you were towing. A lightweight trailer and we are not talking like heavy amounts of poundage. We're talking like maybe a small trailer going to a farmer's market. The breaking system for those trailers. Is connects to the same odb2 port bye car
Reason #7852 why I won't buy an EV - desiccant filter warranty.
Technically, that only applies to Daimler AG (aka Mercedes) vehicles. No other OEM that I know of has any kind of stipulation like this... I'm also pretty sure that in this case, denying the warranty over not changing the desiccant cartridge is a violation of the Magnusson Moss Warranty Act.
Secret required maintenance items?
Lesson learned: Do not buy a Mercedes EV.
Mercedes *shudders*
Buy American !!!
Every day I hate electric cars a bit more. Too much stupid software to deal with.
Not just electric cars, but all cars.
What a horror story. Another reason to not buy a Mercedes product.
Junk technology