If you want to remove the dashboard, it's a good chance that it's because it looks like this. Airbag go pop. I bought this brand new replacement dashboard direct from smart. December 2022 is cost me £330. Every generation of smart gets harder to remove the dashboard....
Smartmods
for all your modding needs, recommended by Evilution
Kane Harrison
453 Digital Speedo Coding
2 Types Of Digital Speedo Depending on your skills, tools and testicle volume, you have 2 options for a digital speedo. The small digital speedo is easy, the large digital speedo is tricky but looks better. Small Digital Speedo The small digital speedo appears on the...
453 Door Handle Removal
External Handle Removal Open the door and look at the back of the handle. Finally I have a use for a Torx27 screwdriver. Look on the trailing edge of the door and pull out the rubber bung. Use a Torx30 screwdriver to undo this bolt about 10 turns. You don't need to...
453 Door Panel Removal
Important This only applies to the 453 fortwo. The 453 forfour has metal door panels that cannot be removed. Remove the front bumper and the arch panels. Remove the front arch support clip. This is held in place with a 10mm bolt with a Torx30 head. Either tool will...
453 Dump Valve
I don't have a 453 turbo so I can't show it being done on the car yet. But I do have a turbo for the 453. The arrowed black box is the recirculating valve. It's coming off. Remove the 3x Torx30 bolts... ...that are located around the outside. The recirc valve just...
453 Eco Sport Settings
If you have the Eco and Sport setting on your 453 and bored of selecting the setting you want, you can code the car into remembering what setting was used when the car was used previously. Start up DDT4All and connect to the car. In the 2nd window down, click...
453 ECU Location
Open the boot/trunk and look over to the right. Take out the Torx screws shown below... ...then pull the lower boot trim towards the centre of the car. You can then pull the top boot trim away. It helps if you pull the rubber boot seal backwards to clear the trim. You...
453 ED-EQ Heater Fault
How Can A Heater Not Work? In petrol and diesel powered cars, the coolant is pumped around the engine and then into a radiator in the cabin. Air is blown over this radiator and into the car. On the electric drive version, the "engine" doesn't create enough heat to...
453 Electrical Connectors
I'm starting to get reports of failing connectors on the 453 so as each one is brought to my attention, I'll try to find the manufacturer and add the information here, plus the reason each reported one failed. 12v Battery Sensor Ben C from SmartTecnic contacted me...
453 Electrical Faults
A Future Common Problem I'm lucky enough to be in a position where I hear about a lot of different issues on smarts and over many many years, I have learnt to spot patterns and trends for issues that can become common and well known faults. What's The Symptom For This...
453 Electronic Controllers
No one seems to know where any of the 453 controllers are or, if they find a controller, they don't know what it is. The main issues that causes confusion with a lot of people is four-fold. 1 - Being a Renault underneath, none of the controllers look like the old...
453 Engine And Gearbox Types
How Can I Tell What Engine My 453 Has? Normally, to tell the engine, you open the boot, remove the engine cover and take a look. There is always a tell-tale difference between the engines. Turbo 0.9 Engine (281.910) 1.0 Non Turbo Engine (281.920) At 1st glance, with...
453 Engine Cover
453 Fortwo & 453 Forfour Engine Cover Some people had problems with the single quarter turn fastener in the previous Fortwos and Roadster. The 453 replaced the single fastener with something easier but takes ages to undo. Here is the 453 engine cover. There are 6...
453 EQ Acoustic Presence Switch
If you have an EQ (electric drive) smart 453, it probably has the pedestrian warning noise maker fitted. Some countries didn't mandate them so you'll have to look and listen to know if yours has it. Up until the end of 2019, the car had a switch that could be pushed...
453 EQ Battery Fault
There seems to be a software issue with the 453 ED/EQ which can intermittently bring up a battery fault. The error can display in 1 of 3 ways. 1 - Malfunction, Visit Workshop ...or 2 - Charging Not possible, Visit Workshop Either way, the car will not start or drive....
453 EQ Charger Coding
Smart Screwed Up Many of the European electric drive 453s with the 7kW chargers left the factory with the inability to actually charge at 7kW. This is because of BS power regulations in some countries. Read about it here. Really? Yep. Let's look at numbers. Watts are...
453 EQ Crash Sensor
453 Pyro Fuse Surprise! Unlike most other EV cars, the 453 doesn't have a pyro fuse. Instead of something easy to change, it has an entire controller which internally destructs in a crash. Symptoms You've crashed the car and it will no longer drive. However, the car...
453 EQ Desiccant Cartridge
What Is A Desiccant Cartridge? Electric doesn't like water but high power batteries and water can cause serious issues. A desiccant cartridge pulls all of the water out of the air inside the battery. This reduction in humidity stops the formation of condensation...
453 EQ HV Service Plug
If you are doing any work on the high voltage side of the car, any orange cables or any electrical controllers for the battery or motor, you really should be pulling the service disconnect plug to stop the system from being able to apply the 400 volts through the HV...
453 EQ Power Display
What Do The Lights Mean? There are 12 LEDs in an arc over the top of the dash pod. If you don't know what they mean, they could look random. However, it's not random but the info it tells you isn't exactly important or interesting. It's just showing how much power you...