W164 rear Sam - can units be recoded

[Bert_W164]

Hi,

I'm in a right pickle, Mercedes said the rear Sam would take two days to arrive and now are saying may be it'll arrive on 18th November.

I need to use the car before then, so in addition to checking if other Mercedes branches can act quicker, I may go down the route of picking up a used W164 rear Sam if it can be recoded to work with my ML63.

Does anyone know if this is possible?

 

[Jobsworth]

Yes, you can

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Yes, you can

Is there much to it?

 

[Jobsworth]

Is there much to it?

bit of coding. Many will tell you it’s online only, but it can be done offline, just quite a bit of stuff to trawl through

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

bit of coding. Many will tell you it’s online only, but it can be done offline, just quite a bit of stuff to trawl through

How much labour (time) would you say for a specialist? It seems to be a common issue.

 

[Jobsworth]

An hour or less. It’s not huge

 

[Major774]

Can you still access the old rear Sam unit (as in read it with STAR)? If so, you can just copy the coding to a used unit.

 

[Jobsworth]

Can you still access the old rear Sam unit (as in read it with STAR)? If so, you can just copy the coding to a used unit.

Now then, I’m not sure that’s true. It’s not quite like replacement units of old. The first option that pops up when you choose initial startup is online. I can’t recall seeing an option for transfer coding to new unit on these. You go into online, but can then select an option to code offline in standalone mode. You tgen need to follow the steps and select or deselect each option as it is offered. I’ve done plenty before, both with secondhand and with Mercedes service exchange units. You can buy new for about £400, or exchange for around half that. They do love to give you the runaround though, with long lead times for the recon units. I think they hope you’ll give up and buy the new one and stump up double. My advice, stick to your guns. I usually see one within a couple of days

 

[Major774]

May be it only works for older cars.

I noticed the rear SAM unit in my car was replacement with another one that didn’t have the right part number. Also the cable for the rear demister was burnt out (thick gauge red wire), it even burnt out some of the plastic housing of the rear SAM, fortunately the rear SAM was still work fine. But for peace of mind I sourced a used unit which had a correct part number, so I just copied the coding from one to the other (didn’t need to go online), all done within the car.

The used unit cost me less than £50.

 

[Jobsworth]

May be it only works for older cars.

I noticed the rear SAM unit in my car was replacement with another one that didn’t have the right part number. Also the cable for the rear demister was burnt out (thick gauge red wire), it even burnt out some of the plastic housing of the rear SAM, fortunately the rear SAM was still work fine. But for peace of mind I sourced a used unit which had a correct part number, so I just copied the coding from one to the other (didn’t need to go online), all done within the car.

The used unit cost me less than £50.

Yes, the slightly older tech units in cars like your 211 were very straightforward. W164 is on the cusp of the move to online coding. The latest stuff is all online now.

 

[Bert_W164]

Can you still access the old rear Sam unit (as in read it with STAR)? If so, you can just copy the coding to a used unit.

No, I'm afraid not. No communication at all with the rear Sam. I can hear the NEC relay buzz away, so it sounds like it's being powered up, I'm guessing a microprocessor is fried.

 

[Bert_W164]

An update for anyone going through rear Sam hell. According to my local branch, and Tonbridge there is a world wide shortage of recon units. As stated previously I was quoted a wait until Mid November.

For reasons unknown my local branch didn't even offer me a new unit, but thanks to a helpful soul on this forum, who let me know of where one is available, I managed to get them to recheck everything properly and now there's apparently a new unit in a branch not far from me coming in tomorrow. Sure it's a delta of £220, but it's the difference of the car sitting idle for 3 months.

Price for refurb is £330 (-50 when you hand yours in)
Price for new is £550
Prices include VAT.

Labour for fitting was quoted at approx £350, this included diagnostics, replacement of rear Sam and coding.

However I've chosen to repurpose the labour money into a DIY/indy route. I did initially have the car booked into Mercedes, but that was another mess in it self, two days went by where no one looked at the car and couldn't confirm when they can find 10 mins to plug Star into the OBD port Managing expectations isn't a thing to this particular branch.

It goes without saying, W164 owners check your rear light cluster seals, third brake light seal, rear window seals, or basically any point in which water can journey into the rear of the car.

 

[Bert_W164]

And an awesome dude in parts found me a new unit, knocked a bit off because of the run around, I plugged the new unit in and voilà the central locking is working.

 

[Bert_W164]

I plugged the new Sam in, surprisingly almost everything works, however it says I've got a rear signal bulb that's out, it could genuinely be popped due to the water damage but and when the cars locked the indicator stays on in the dashboard cluster...and the convenience stuff doesn't work (automatically moving the steering wheel to the set position and back in when keys taken out) so it seems a wee bit of coding is required.

Straight away my central locking, power boot etc all worked without any coding, I took the car out for a drive and all's well other than the aforementioned issues.

 

[hog]

Hi go to settings on dash to set up your convenience settings.

Hog

 

[Bert_W164]

Hi go to settings on dash to set up your convenience settings.

Hog

Am I being extremely dim, I couldn't find the setting while cycling through. However I pressed the wing mirror button and now the steering wheel moves automatically as I enter the key.

Also fixed my rear indicator issue, corrosion was stopping it from conducting, cleaned it off and it's working.

So far it seems the new unit was plug and play???

 

[hog]

OK good luck