Help! Car died on acceleration!

[RayG]

Did somewhat of a hard launch. Slight tire chirp, into second gear all is good, into third gear good jump and then nothing! Suddenly the Serice Engine Soon light goes on, I hit the gas and nothing, I let the car roll into the breakdown lane at about 20 mph the power steering vanishes and I know the car is dead. Stopped, waited about ten seconds and tried restarting the car. It started up fine and got me home no problem. Any ideas?

Two problems that I know of, I'm getting that clunk in the rear of the car on acceleration. Also when I do an aggessive launch the shifter shakes like a mother. (broken trans mount?) Could one of these issues be somehow related to my problem today? What should I be looking for? Thanks!

 

[Ulysses]

Sounds like something is shorting out.

 

[Paul Hawker]

Battery?

 

[FrankBarba]

What was your RPM's when this happened? If you exceeded 6500 automatic shutdown, so you don't blow the motor.

 

[RayG]

I definately wasn't over 6500 rpm as I had just shifted into third shortly before it happened. Everything happened so quickly I would say that I was at around 4000 rpm and at full throttle. It almost felt like the car bucked for a second then died

 

[charlesj]

regarding electrical, it certainly could be. i've experienced many electrical problems with past cars & have had plenty of shorts (i used to drive junkers & now i am superman in my viper.) only input though is that from what you are describing, shifting into 3rd & then all of a sudden nothing, that sounds very abrupt. when i've broken down due to electrical issues, it has always been a more gradual loss of power. also, in my experiences, the car would not just start back up again without any issues. i don't have much mechanical know-how but thought i could at least contribute my experiences with breaking down.

 

[gthomas]

I've had a sudden loss of power under acceleration due to a bad alternator/battery.
It was a night with all accessories on.
However, after it died, it wouldn't start. The battery wouldn't hold a charge, and the alternator wouldn't charge/supply power.

 

[gthomas]

RayG, when the car bucked for a second (your second post), did it seem 'mechanical'?
I've had a broken motormount on a TH350, on pre-OBD car, and I could 'tell', but it didn't shut off.
Does the transmission seem as if the shaking could be caused internally, not from a bad motormount?

 

[Larry Macedo]

Lots of valid points. Also, what amount of fuel was in the tank when this occured?

 

[Russ M]

I am with Larry,

Is it possible that you are just low on fuel? Under hard acceleration my car does tend to run weird when low on fuel.

 

[JUCD VPR]

I'd say either low fuel or maybe a loose battery connection. My mustang did the same exact thing, I romped on it shifted into second and then she stated bucking and then nothing. Thing died on me. So i checked the terminals and they were lose, tightened them up and off we went haulin a$$ again.

 

[ArlyDude]

I would go out and try to recreate the problem. Then when you think you fixed it, try to do the same that way you will know if you fixed it. You can't just have your car shut off for no reason, that could be dangerous.

 

[RayG]

As for fuel I had just filled up completely about a mile before this happened so it shouldn't be that.

Why would the power steering suddenly disappear below 20mph? Iwas probably going about 70mph when it happened and rolled to a stop. If the car totally died shouldn't the power steering die right away as well? Could this indicate that the car was still running when I was hitting the gas and getting nothing?

 

[Russ M]

It probably did but at higher speed you would not notice the power steering not working.

Does the car have any electrical work done to it? Sound system? Alarm? etc...

If its not the fuel then your next best bet is some sort of short. Unfortunatly most of the time the culprit is aftermarket mods installed incorectly.

 

[Ulysses]

There are wires that run underneath along the tranny. They have been a problem spot for some before. If your tranny was vibrating as bad as you say it was, it's quite possible the vibration wore away at the wires and caused a short. Just a guess, since it's really hard to diagnose these things over the net.

 

[Jack B]

Use a scan tool and find out what code is set, there could be a soft code that is still there.

 

[ViperGTS]

Check the cables (+ and -) from the battery to the engine (bay).

 

[AviP]

As for fuel I had just filled up completely about a mile before this happened so it shouldn't be that.

Bingo! Loose fuel cap or something like that. Check the codes.

 

[RayG]

Gas cap is tight. I took the car out today and tried to make it happen again and couldn't. Maybe I went over 6500 rpm's without realizing it? Would the check engine light come on? And would the car totally shut down?

 

[Ulysses]

When you hit the rev limiter, it usually makes a pop sound that scares the crap out of you and the fuel gets cut off, but it usually recovers very quickly when you back off the rpms.

 

[ArlyDude]

Haha, I think that's what I did the one day going up a big hill by my house. I was in one of my usual I don't give a [******] moods and was flying up this hill and BANG, It did scare me.

 

[scottgf]

Bet you hit the fuel cutoff First time I did it, it really freaked me out...
Cheers,