Marcus2025

I've searched all over the place before posting this, but I can't seem to find a solution.

I have a 2004 RX-8 GT. It doesn't happen all the time, but sometimes when I am in neutral and turn my wheel all my dash lights and GPS go out, as well as my radar detector then it comes back on not even 1 second later. It has happened only 1 time while I was driving. All other occurrences have been while I have been sitting in neutral. I think it could be a loose plug or something, but I have no idea where to start on where the power comes in from. I took it in to Mazda here in Indy and they said that they could not duplicate the issue. So I HIGHLY doubt they looked at any plugs or anything like that.

Also, my GPS buttons stopped working. I also think this could be a loose plug issue. The joystick works with no problems, but the other buttons do not.

Has anyone had an issue similiar to this?

Thank you very much in advance for any input.

Jon316G

iTrader: (1)

This can be difficult to troubleshoot, but there is one thing that stands out to me as being a possibility.
You have devices losing power that are on different circuits (from different fuses).
Now this is assuming the radar detector is simply plugged into the cigarette lighter or at least wired into that circuit.
The one place these circuits "come together" is the ACC relay.
This might explain why you experienced this during driving and the dealer couldn't reproduce it (since they probably didn't drive it or drive it hard enough).

So I would rule out the obvious and swap the ACC relay with another one.
I believe the ACC and TAIL are the same (and maybe the HORN).
If you swap the relays and can't reproduce the issue, you know that the relay is bad and to get a new one.

Marcus2025

Thank you very much for the reply. I will most definitely check that out. After testing out again earlier yesterday I realized that it wasn't just my interior lights...my headlights were going off too... One thing that I did not realize...the stock battery is still in the car...after 6 years. When I tested the charge yesterday, without the car on it was only getting 34 cold cranking amps...With the car on, the alternator was normal. I think I should go buy a new battery...