just yesterday i got in my car which had been running perfectly normal the last time i drove it. i had not driven it for three days, and it had been sitting outside in the cold (temperatures anywhere between 10-30 degrees F).

^that's just background information to help understand the situation

anyways, heres what went down:
i turned on the car to get some heat going while i scraped the windshield off. started up just fine... nothing unusual and no cell lights. everything in the car was off (radio, seat heater, etc.) except for the heater/defrost. i got back in the car and used the wipers twice to clear the rest of the snow. at this time i was still sitting in neutral with the parking brake on. before puting the car in reverse and puting the parking brake down, i turned on my low beams for a second, and this is where things started to get wierd.

the second i turned my low beams on, all the lights in the car (both in the dash and center console, including gauges and everything) turned off as if the car was not even on, yet the engine did not stop running. a quick second later, the center console displayed "RX-8" as if the car had just been turned on again, and all other lights came back on shortly after that. things seemed to be normal (other than all my radio settings such as volume and station presets had been erased), so i didn't think anything of it and proceeded to drive. no more than a mile's worth of driving later, things went haywire. i was maintaining a constant speed of 42mph when suddenly a number of cell lights came on and began flashing continually. these lights included tpms, dsc, tcs, abs... those are the ones i can remember for sure, although i think there were a few more, too, there were SEVERAL. in addition to this, the spedometer started sporadically changing and showing ranom numbers. i did not change my acceleration at all and would assume i was still going at a constant 42mph during this, but here is an example of what it would display: 36, 49, 37, 45, 33, 42, etc. (switching between 30's and 40's randomly like that, and this happened quickly... maybe three or four times per second). this continued for a short while and then suddenly stopped.

i pulled over at the first opportunity and turned the car off. when i tried to start it up again, it did not start up right away like usual. when it did start up, all of the cell lights were off except dsc and tcs remained on. i drove the car a while, and dsc and tcs remained on the entire time, yet i did not encounter any more problems with the other cell lights or sporadic spedometer changes. after maybe fifteen minutes of driving, i turned the car off. i returned and drove the car again about thirty minutes after that, and ALL the lights (including dsc and tcs) were now off, and the car seemed to be 100% back to normal.

after reading a lot of other threads in this forum it seems apparent to me that my car must have gone through some sort of reset, yet i have never read anything remotely close to something like this happening to anybody else, so i decided to post this entire scenario here in order to see if anybody else has ever expereienced anything like this. i have driven the car a few more times since, and everything seems to be alright, but any light you can shed on this issue (esp. what might have caused it??) would be much appreciated!!! sorry for such a long post -.-

 

Sounds like a loose battery terminal post.

 

Have you tried making sure your battery is up to snuff and getting a good connection? I'd say check that first.

 

+1 on the battery post connection.

 

i'll have to go take a look at it. thanks for the advice...

would that alone be capable of causing all those problems though?

 

I hope you know that your car is actually running on your BATTERY, not your Alternator.

If your battery is weak or dead, Your car will have a hard time staying on.

Thats why its very important to have a good, strong, working battery at all times.

Well of course you should check your connection, but I vote for a weak battery(especially if your battery is still STOCK battery)

 

That's why I said make sure it's strong and connections are good.

See, I cover all the bases