SMG Woes - Need Assistance

[sapote]

When arriving home from work, car off, I heard the smg reservoir priming over and over again. Opened the res tank and saw it was low, and the sound (I thought) was the pump trying to suck fluid while being dry so I topped it off

Hopefully it was low fluid which led to air in the system and pump can't build up pressure. I would try to bleed the air out first (you found fluid overflow the reservoir the next day which means air in the system) and see if the pump no longer running continuously.

[oceansize]

The car should be cold when checking the SMG fluid. You weren't low so you overfilled. It sounds as if your accumulator has failed and/or the seals inside the pump have gone bad and it cannot build pressure. DIS or INPA (with the full suite of SMG utilities) can do accumulator tests. Hook up INPA and look at pump pressure and see what your pressure sensor is reading. Pressure sensor could also be bad. Can sometimes read -1 when it goes. You should build pressure up to 80 bar and then the motor will switch off. I'm sure you are never getting there.

[Grayson]

I need your help...

Story time.

Past: Cog light has been on for 3 weeks at this point (please don't flame me, be gentle) but no shifting issues or any symptoms of a malfunctioning smg. I thought heat related and kept dailying the car. When arriving home from work, car off, I heard the smg reservoir priming over and over again. Opened the res tank and saw it was low, and the sound (I thought) was the pump trying to suck fluid while being dry so I topped it off, checked for leaks, saw none and replaced the salmon relay (read somewhere to do that). So the priming sound / issue went away for 2 weeks.

Present: Woke up to dead battery after a long weekend not driving the car. When I hooked up the cable to jump the first this I hear is the priming sound. So it killed the battery apparently. I unplug the salmon relay and plug it back it and the priming sound stops, get the car jumped and drives fine. Thinking the res maybe low again I open the tank and its BRIMMED to the top with fluid. All the way to the rim. Uh huh? There is also fluid all around the cap on the outside so I think it's been leaking from the cap since it now has too much fluid. I stopped driving the car daily and took the relay out the keep the battery from dying just in case it goes prime mode again. Even though it hasn't acted up since.

What is going on here? Could it be solved with a simple bleed of the system? I did replace my starter recently (within 6 months) so maybe during that install air go into the system (removal of the reservoir is required for starter install)? Are these symptoms associated with the smg pump leaking internally (good god please no)? Any help or insight into this is greatly appreciated. To scared to drive the car now for fear of causing more damage but not afraid to fix stuff if I know what it is I'm taking apart and why.

Thanks in advance.

TLDR: Cog light, Pump/reservoir priming continuously while car is off, salmon relay unplug & plug back in temporarily stops priming, smg hydraulic fluid levels in res low one day to high another day. (obligatory "time to manny swap" comment)