I was driving through an intersection and didn't notice the pothole on the other side of a manhole. The front passenger tire dipped into the pothole, and the undercarriage slammed onto the manhole. The car immediately lost power and shut off. No dash warning lights illuminated, just a complete loss of electrical power to the motor.

I rolled through the intersection, shifted to park, tried turning the key, and NADA. Not a single dash warning light illuminated. No clicks, or sounds of any sort. No response to the ignition key turning whatsoever. I then tried to shift to neutral to push the car fully off the road into a parking space. Shifter would not budge. I remove the "ski slope" so I could manually depress the metal shift release tab to the left of the shifter. That allowed me to shift to neutral and push the car. The "P" on the shifter is not illuminated. Is the linear switch something that could have been jarred loose? Where is that switch?

Stereo, windows, power door locks, sunroof, and other accessories work fine. The alarm operates engages without error. I unplugged the battery for 10 minutes in hopes of something resetting. No luck. Seems I'm getting no electricity to the engine. I figure something popped loose when the car bottomed out, but what? Any clue where to start?

 

Sometimes it's simple. Turns out the slamming into the pothole was enough to trip the inertia switch. In every other car I've owned, the inertia switch simply disabled the fuel pump, but apparently on the X300, it disables the entire ignition circuit. For future searchers, the inertia switch is located in the passenger side (right) footwell near the right side kick panel. No need to remove the kick panel. Just peel back the carpeting a few inches and you can easily depress the button atop the switch.