E-Class (W211) 2003-2009

Reversed Battery Leads STUPID mistake!!!

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Old Apr 7, 2020 | 11:22 AM
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2000 E320
Reversed Battery Leads STUPID mistake!!!

Guys and gals, I need some help here.

I reversed the battery leads when replacing the OG battery to my wife's car with 192k miles on it. I immediately unhooked the negative post after seeing the huge sparking/welding happening. When I got it connected I realized I fried several things:
1. The alternator
2. The rear brake lights and parking lights were acting crazy
3. The blower motor regulator
4. The radio wouldn't come on

Several things were easy replacements:
1. I actually tried just replacing the alternator regulator first, that didn't work so I replaced the whole alternator and that got it charging again.
3. I replaced the blower motor regulator and I was getting air again.
4. There were 3 or 4 fuses I found blown in the 3 fuse locations I checked (one under the hood, one in the driver side of the trunk and one under the passenger side foot well), one of those fuses was the fuse for the radio and I have music again.

So now I'm left with figuring out the brake and parking light issues. Only the passenger brake lights up and I can't get the driver side parking light to turn off. I looked up the wiring diagram on AllDataDYI.com and it shows all the rear lights being controlled by the rear SAM relay and fuse box. I sourced a used Rear Sam from Ebay but it didn't fix the issue, now the passenger side brake light and license plate lights are always on when the car is on. The used part has the same part number but different HW and SW revisions printed on it's tag compared to my original part, I'm thinking maybe it needs to be programmed but I am still unsure if that will fix the problem. Oh and I checked all the bulbs in the rear tail light assembly on both sides using a power probe, all bulbs will light up when power is applied. Can anybody shed any light on this issue??
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