Roadster Pods
In the Roadster you can have additional instruments fitted.
Mod difficulty:
Mod Credit: Evil/HoagieKat
Any design will work with your Roadster but it makes sense to copy the speedo colour.
The additional instruments retail at £120.82 + VAT, Brabus ones cost more.
Extra Wiring
On the 2003 and early 2004 manufactured Roadsters, the wiring for these pods just wasn't fitted as standard. Don't be too concerned as adding it is quite easy.
The extra wiring connection is available from smart, the part number is
How Do I Know If I Need It?
Gavin came up with a good suggestion if you don't have the automatic rain sensor fitted. Swing the SAM unit down and unclip plug 9, slide out the grey plug and find connection 14.
If you have no blue or violet wire coming from pin 14, you will need the extra wiring.
I Have Found A Wire In Pin 14
Well the good news is that if you don't have the automatic wiper and headlight sensor, you have the wiring suitable for the additional instuments, the bad news is that you now have to find the plug. Unfortunately it's not usually that easy.
More often than not the plug is situated somewhere behind the centre console.
Removing the radio, lower switch panel and accessory drawers can help you find it.
You are looking for a black flat connector with 10 pins. It will have wires coming from pin:
But you still can't find the connector huh! Annoying. You will have to fit the replacement
loom and splice the SAM cable into the existing wire found at Plug 9 connection 14.
Adding The Extra Wiring
People seem to be having problems with this so I will high light the problems.
Problem 1
There are people saying that old versions of the extra wiring adapter where wired wrongly,
I have yet to see one that doesn't work but if yours doesn't work, double check it against this info or send me a few pictures and details.
Problem 2
A few people are fitting the blue wire to the wrong connection on the SAM unit.
As long as you follow the directions below, you will not get it wrong.
Make Way For The Pods
The pods replace a piece of dash trim so let's get the old one out of the way.
Take a thin blade screwdriver and place it in the front edge of the top buttons.
Carefully lever the button bank upwards.
As you will see, the button bank is held down with 4 sprung metal clips.
Pull the electrical connector from the bottom of the button bank.
Use a Torx10 screwdriver to remove the two screws.
Lift the panel up and out.
Add The Additional Wiring
Remove the stereo and thread the thin black connector into the stereo hole
and out through the small hole in the top of the dashboard.
With your pods you should have received a 10 to 6 way adapter.
Plug this into the 10 pin black connection.
On the additional pod wiring you will see it has a 6 way connector,
this plugs into the other end of the 10 to 6 way adapter.
Look back in the stereo hole, insert the old stereo power connection into the additional wiring socket and plug that into the back of the stereo. Insert the remaining connections into the stereo and push it back into its hole making sure you don't catch any wires.
You will have one very long blue wire left to fit.
Drop the SAM unit down, the nearest part to you is the hinge, reach to the
back and pull the plastic loop. The SAM should swing down and you should
be able to gain access to the connector we need. If not you will have to
disconnect the hinge by pushing it up and towards the front of the car.
The connection we are looking for is labled N11-9.
To remove the plug you simply press the clip in and swing the plastic
lever over (exactly like the speedo connector).
As the lever swings it will push the connector out, you will see that the large white block houses 2 smaller AMP connections, 1 black and 1 grey.
Slide out the grey connector from the white block.
Look at the side of the grey block and you will see numbers at the ends 1, 10, 11 and 20.
This makes it easy to find empty connection 14, it is next to the all blue wire.
This is the bit people get wrong, check and double check it is pin 14.
The terminal just pushes and clips in place.
With the new wire connected, slide the grey block back into the white holder.
Push it back into the SAM unit and fold the lever back over to lock it in place.
Check the car still works before putting the SAM unit back under the dash.
Fitting The New Pods
Place the new pods in place and secure down with the two screws removed earlier.
Tuck all the excess wiring underneath the pods out of the way.
Plug the button bank back in and push it back into position.
Job done, start your car up and make sure they work.
Fitting A Trip Computer
If you are fitting a trip computer, discard the 10 to 6 way adapter.
The trip computer has two sockets over on one side, one is a 10 pin, the other is a 6 pin.
Plug the 10 way connector into the larger socket and the additional instruments into the remaining 6 pin socket. The trip computer acts as the 10 to 6 way adapter.
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