Hey all!
So, I've surfed around a bit, hoping to find someone else has had this issue, and I haven't found anything. If I've missed it, please point me in the correct direction?

My '02 2.5 w/ manual trans runs like a champ. But the other day, I was sitting in line at the drive-thru at Starbucks, with the air going full-tilt and the radio on as well. Suddenly the radio quit, and the a/c fan started to wind-down. Then the radio cam back on, but by then I was looking at the guages, and the motor had died. No warning. Just turned-off.
I tried to start it back up, but it acted for all the world like a dead-battery. No old-skool click from the solenoid, but a sort of buzzing in the dashboard when the key was released.

So I push-started it with no problem. Took it back home (less than a mile) and shut it off in the driveway. It then fired-right back up! No problems at all! I tested the battery, and I'm showing a good 12.5 volts with the car off, and closer to 14 with it running. I throw all the load I can at it (electrically) and it won't dip below 13volts while running. It did not erase any presets in the radio, but it DID reset the trip computer.

problem is: it's done it twice more. excatly the same symptoms. Last time, I push started it, and then immediately shut it off, just to test the problem, and it started right up.

any ideas? anyone?

 

Sounds like your battery is on its way out. It give symptoms like I've never had with any other car. It will even test ok but still be hosed up. I'd start there. It would be good if you had a known good battery from another car to use to test it....

 

I was thinking bad cable(s), perhaps the main ground in the engine bay?

 

I have a load-test machine that I use to test batteries. Now, this is not a stellar battery mind you... but I'm afraid putting-in a new battery might just be masking the real issue. I'd like to find it.

But I agree... a new battery is likely in order.

 

jag-ooo-r, I am thinking that you are having an issue with a high resistance connection on one of your main power wires. This can be either a main power wire running from the battery to the fuse box or it could be a bad wire between the body of the car and the negative post of the battery. For the moment, you can try adding a fairly large gauge wire between the body of the car and the negative battery cable to see if that helps things. If it does, then this confirms a bad ground cable. Beyond that, you pretty much have to have a multimeter with you and be able to take some quick measurements while the fault is present.

I had a car that had a similar problem. But, in my case, all the electronics inside the cab of the vehicle would start fading out when I turned on too much. In my case, a 6 gauge wire (ground wire) between the cab of the vehicle and the engine turned into a light bulb. This wire developed a point that it corroded and with enough current flowing through it, it started glowing white hot. As you can imagine, I was a bit surprised by this. In your case, if you are "lucky" (take that how you want), you will be able to see the wire change color, helping you locate the problem. Unfortunately, without trying to run your hand over all the wiring and finding a hot spot, the only other option is getting your hands on a thermal imager. This isn't something that a lot of people have lying around. If you have a friend that is a fire fighter or a submariner, you may be able to talk to them and use theirs in the parking lot.

 

well I happen to be in luck... as I own a thermal imager. I hadn't thought of this application though. :-)

I'm w/ ya on the idea of a bad ground.
I'll spenmd some time on it this weekend, and see what I come up with./

Thanks all, for your ideas and help!

 

jag-ooo-r, all that you are looking for is a white spot with the thermal imager. You are looking for a wiring spot that is hotter than the surrounding area. That will be your key to a bad joint. As a rule of thumb, if you have one of the better units that also tells you the temps, anything over 5F from the surrounding temps is bad. Atleast that is the standard we use at my work when looking at switchboards and other high current applications.