97 Es300 Lost All Systems While Driving... Then Returned

[kreipe]

This morning while driving to work (40mph) the car completely shut down. As I was coasting to the side of road the whole car came back to life and kept going. I am completely baffled. I had no loss of clock time or radio station presets. Has anyone got a clue to what happened? My first guess is the ignition somehow shorted out and then fixed itself, but that sounds too crazy.

Any help would be appreciated.

(BTW: it is the coldest day in a long time - 12F)

[1990LS400]

I've had the exact same condition caused by a bad battery on both my previous 90 LS and current 00 LS. Now that I think about it, it was odd that the radio presets didn't get lost.

Not that your battery is bad -- I'm saying only that a defective battery is one of the possible causes.

[kreipe]

Even though this battery is less than a year old I've had some problems with it. The positive cable tends to come loose and then it won't start, even when all the lights and radio work. I have to them twist the cable to make better contact with the post. When I go through this exercise I don't loose enough power to drop the presets or clock. I just re-tightened the nut in the connector when I get home. I've never had this problem while driving. You might be on to something here. I'll check the tightness of that cable.

I might experiment to see if when the car is running and I disconnect the battery, will the car still run? Or can anyone answer that for me?

Thanks!

[1990LS400]

It could also be a bad battery cable. I actually had a battery cable fail in about 1994 on a 1990 LS400. The incident was especially memorable because my warranty had just expired and the Lexus dealer service department manager told me that my car needed a new $1,000+ ECU. When I asked to use a phone to call a tow truck to take my car to an independent repair shop, the problem suddenly turned into an inexpensive battery cable. To make matters more interesting, the service manager tried to bribe me to keep me from ratting on him. I didn't but he ended up getting fired anyway a few months later.

[TKing]

I had a Honda that did *exactly* that a couple of times and it turned out to be the key cylinder. That would be my guess here.

[Lexucan]

This morning while driving to work (40mph) the car completely shut down. As I was coasting to the side of road the whole car came back to life and kept going. I am completely baffled. I had no loss of clock time or radio station presets. Has anyone got a clue to what happened? My first guess is the ignition somehow shorted out and then fixed itself, but that sounds too crazy.

Any help would be appreciated.

(BTW: it is the coldest day in a long time - 12F)

A loose battery connector combined with cold temperatures is a recipe for this type thing happening. We had a cold snap here about a month ago. Until then, car always started fine, but after the temperature dropped, first time I tried to start the car the dash lights came on as usual for a second as I turned the key but then everything went dead. I checked the battery terminals and tightened them. The car started up fine after that and has done so ever since. I didn't lose my clock time or radio station presets either, although I did have to re-enter my radio's anti-theft system security code before it would work, but all the station presets were still in memory.