Trying to figure out a disturbing incident with my 2005 Prius. This past Saturday, I drove about 120 miles. Weather was cold but not severe. When I stopped at my destination, I removed some cargo I'd brought with me. When I tried to lock the car with the remote, nothing happened. Door switches didn't work. No lights worked, not even brake lights. Car wouldn't start, needless to say. Just completely dead. I opened the fuse box and looked around, pulled out a couple relays. Nothing helped. About five minutes later, everything worked again. Full function all around. Clock had lost time, and driver's side window lost the auto-down, but kept my radio stations. Car has worked fine since. Anyone have any guesses what this could be? No warning lights when the car came back. Is there a master relay or similar that may be getting tired? Don't want this happening on the road or somewhere in the boonies. Thanks in advance.
Strange. I’ve had this happen to my 2013. Same scenario but mine came back to life within a few minutes. I could not explain it, like there was a short.
More than likely a loose connection at the 12 V battery or the negative connection to the car body. Check all three connections are clean and tight. Tighten with a box wrench or socket.
Battery connections is a good one It can also be a screwed up master fuse whatever Toyota calls it I can't remember right now it's the clear thing in your under hood fuse box in the engine compartment It has multiple connections in it those connections sometimes the solder can come loose and when they get a certain temperature or vibration things start to get intermittent if you will so it could be a lot of things actually You need to look at your battery see what happens if you short your 12 volt for about 4 seconds things like that It should be very easy to find well for some people anyway
Contra the thread title then, it must not have been totally dead. It was only mostly dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. A friend had a car once that would go completely dark right on attempting to start it. Then it would come back to life a few minutes later. That one had a battery clamp making such poor contact that the current to start the car would heat it up and expand it till it lost contact with the battery post. As it cooled it contracted and tightened until it made (lousy) contact again.
Thanks for the validation! Nice to know someone else has had this, though not nice it happened. I also thought of a short or a weak relay, given how it was fine, totally dead, and fine again.
I thought of this when I had the fuse cover off and was poking around. What IS that long clear thing? Can it be replaced? It looks like the transparent cover comes off, but I didn't want to try it in my partner's driveway with no tools.
That's a fusible link assembly, and yes, it can be replaced. There are a bunch of different fusible sections in there, where metal of a certain width is pulling upward against a blob of solder. The skinnier ones heat up at lower current than the fat ones. If any carries too much current, it softens the solder and pulls the metal free. You replace the whole thing, by lifting it up out of the fuse box and undoing the connections on the bottom and sides.
Thanks for this! I found this post on how to replace it: How to change Fusible link under hood | PriusChat A commenter there also discusses the 120A main fuse that's on the 12v battery positive terminal. I'll check that out first. This is a very odd problem to me. If a fuse or link had blown, wouldn't it stay blown?
Generally Yes but if the solder on those blobs viewable through the clear window have gotten soft or the car's been beat on really hard vibrated whatever they can become intermittent or they can get hot spread apart stop the connection when it cools off it could possibly go back together a little bit and make a connection for a minute and so on Just a guess it would not be normal in a Toyota at all so this would be one of those fringe things but it's possible.
I had a Mazda 323 SE which would from time to time act like the entire electrical system had suddenly disappeared. Always while moving. It can be exciting dealing with that when there are no lights on the back of the car to signal the guy half asleep behind you. Some time later, like 15 or 20 minutes, it would come back to life and drive like nothing had happened. Neither I nor my mechanic ever found the problem. No CEL or codes - computer can't really store those when it doesn't have power.
I was driving my Prius yesterday, and I got a message saying "system disabled." All I had to do was shut it off and on again. It has happened twice in the year I've had the car. Nothing I'd fret about.
My family has a 1999 Chevy Suburban, and one day last year we were turning into our driveway and the car totally died. Engine shut off, radio, lights, everything, similar to what @pasadena_commut experienced. All this while it was still moving at about 15 mph. It was a bit of a scare but we stopped and cranked it only a few seconds later and it started normally. It acted as if nothing had ever happened afterwards, we took it to our mechanic and he couldn't find anything that would have caused it. In the end we figured maybe it's computer just crashed (not improbable for a 26 year old SUV). I will say it's a bit of a jump scare when you're in a moving car and the engine and radio go silent. BTW that incident had never happened before or since.
But not identical. The Mazda acted like somebody had pulled the battery out of it, and then just as mysteriously put it back.
It happened to me again yesterday, after work, I tried ti unlock the door and nothing. I had to use my key to get into the car. I opened the back seats to access the trunk and to get to my jump pack. Then all of a sudden, power came back on as I lifted the weather tech rubber carpet mat to get to the trunk latch. when I got home, I accessed the battery. Positive contact and ground were tight. When I got to the negative connection, this was loose! come to find out, my quick disconnect for my battery maintainer loosened up the negative connection to the battery post everytime I lifted that thick weather tech mat and that’s why when I lifted it, I got power back. It was wiggling in and out of contact with the negative post. I think this was the problem. Tightened everything with a 10 mm wrench. Hoping all is good now. thanks for all the tips.
