akela

The other day I was driving and came to a stop at a light. The light turned green, I started to let the clutch out in first, and all of a sudden, before I had even gotten the clutch all the way engaged, my dash lights lit up like a christmas tree, the stereo shut off, and I lost power steering - as if the car had lost all electrical power. It all came back on in less than a second, and the whole system came back up as if I had just turned the key to the 'on' position - the center console display even showed the 'Mazda RX-8' banner as if it had just been turned on.

The engine stayed on for all of this, I assume because it had enough momentum to keep spinning even when the whole car lost power, and the electrical system came back up quickly enough to keep it from stalling.

It has happened a couple times since then, but never at speed - it only happens if I'm coming to a complete stop, or starting the car from a complete stop. From what I can tell, everything loses power - stereo, dash, HVAC, etc.

A couple friends have offered the idea of a loose ground somewhere. Any other ideas, or perhaps someone who has experienced the same thing?

Car is an '04 GT 6-speed with only 32k on it.
I did search, but couldn't turn up anything. My apologies if this is a known problem and I just suck at searching

dozer

iTrader: (3)

yeah try tightening up your battery post...

Spinning Sushi

iTrader: (21)

It seems like a lot of people are experiencing this issue. Most likely, the short is in either the driver side or passenger side sun visor.

akela

Battery posts are on pretty tight. I doubt it's that, but I'll take them off and clean them tonight just to be sure.

I searched on the visor thing, and it seems that when the problem is with the visor it only takes out interior stuff. I'm losing power steering as well.

Spinning Sushi

iTrader: (21)

So you're saying that you found the short in the visor but you're power steering is also going out?

dozer

iTrader: (3)

your power steering might be under the hood, take out the airbox and the plate that holds it underneath...right above the radiator and under the airbox should be the PS connector clean it out and you should be fine

akela

No, I haven't taken apart the visors yet. But when I looked at threads about the visor problem on the forum, most people were only having problems with the electronics in the interior. I'm losing all electrical power - not just power to the interior.

UPDATE:
Just checked battery voltages with a dmm. With the car off, battery is putting out 12.86vdc. Charging at 13.9vdc.

rx8cited

Your voltages seem fine. I wonder if you have a bad neutral switch

SpIcEz

I have the exact same problem.

Going to look into the visor thing... not sure if its that or not.
Battery posts are solid and battery is about 5 months old.

akela

Just happened to me again on the way to work today. Weird thing is, after everything came back up, my DSC active light stayed lit, and the DSC Off light started blinking. They didn't go away until I turned off the car.

Of course, now I can't reproduce it.

dozer

iTrader: (3)

^ has to be your battery...have your tried to see if its still good?

akela

Voltages are fine, but I didn't get a chance to clean the terminals and tighten everything up last night. I'll try to get that done tonight - there is a tiny amount of corrosion on the positive terminal, so hopefully that's what is causing it.

akela

Just cleaned the terminals. Started the car - the DSC active light stayed on, and the DSC off light was blinking. Drove it around awhile, turned the car off and back on again - same thing. Off and on again a third time, and the lights went away and everything was back to normal. We'll see if anything happens again.

dozer

iTrader: (3)

i honestly dont know

Socket7

A sun visor with a short in it would blow the room fuse and not effect the engine, or light the dash up like a christmas tree.

The DSC and traction control lights going on after disconnecting the battery is 100% normal. Start the car, turn the wheels from lock to lock, then turn the car off and the lights will go away.

Battery voltage is good...

I know that I've gotten the dash lights to go crazy by letting the clutch out to quick while starting to move and stalling the engine, only to have my forward momentum kickstart the engine right back up. Could this be what you are doing?

akela

Nope - I've stalled enough to know what that feels like

Thanks for confirming my thoughts about the visor short - it didn't seem like that could be causing my issue.

Since reconnecting the battery, I haven't had any problems, though I've only driven about 10 miles. It's good to know the DSC lights are normal, since that was the only thing that still had me worried.

I'm gonna feel pretty dumb if I've been freaking out about a loose battery connection this whole time. Happy that it's solved, but dumb.

tiltmode43

iTrader: (15)

I had this exact problem when my negative terminal had a bad ground and the battery was corroding. I cleaned up and tightened the terminals and the problem went away. +1 for a lose negative connection (perhaps not pushed down all the way) as I had the same exact symptoms.

With regards to the blinking DSC and then staying on continuous - it seems this will happen to me when/if the car loses power then is all of a sudden connected again. I had the same idle stalling issues on the freeway, in traffic once. I was absolutely confused and worried what was wrong with my car, haha. I'm sure someone knows the technical reasons behind this...