t4orce

Today I was driving along in suburbia traffic and something strange happened. As I was approaching a set of lights and coming to a stop, my car shut itself down. It was a bit scary because the stereo turned off and the dashboard screen turned off. Everything shut down like a manual car stalling and turning off. It was a good thing I was going slowly as turning the car off would cause the power steering and brake system to become inefficient.

This has never happened before. I quickly tried to start her up but nothing happened as I was still in drive. I then shifted to neutral and got her started again. Since then everything is fine. I have keyless go and wonder if it has something to do with a comms failure between the key and the car.

There are no warning lights or anything. I just hope it doesn't happen again when I'm travelling at speed. Anyone have this happen before?

jrcart

Sounds like a Chevy Cruz lol




All kidding aside, this is a new one, I don't think I have seen anyone post about this or a similar problem in the past. Did you get any CEL or codes? Take it to your dealer so they can at least document the problem so if it becomes a bigger more frequnet problem in the future they will have a history.

t4orce

We have Holden Cruze in Aus and I park next to 2 of them at work. Maybe my 63 has caught something from them. :0

No codes or strange behaviour. Everything is normal as far as I can tell. But that's good advice. I'll bring it to a dealer to see if any codes can be pulled despite no warning lights.

m a x i m u s

could be something with the keyless go. also, any chance that you somehow accidentally bumped the keyless go on/off button somehow?

CarHopper

Shouldn't shut the car off especially when in drive and moving.

Unfortunately this is going to be one of those things that you'd take to the dealer and they wouldn't be able to recreate it. However, wouldn't hurt to have it at least documented.

whoover

Could be alternator going bad. Low battery voltage and dropping even lower at idle (with alternator not putting out sufficient charge) would do that. Get battery and charging system looked at.

CarHopper

^ Unlikely because he started the car right back up with no issues and drove home. I also assume the car continues to start fine. If the alternator was bad and the car died while driving then the car wouldn't start up right away.

avery.whss

mine did this when i first bought it...was driving down the road and power went dead and "Car inoperable" came on the dash..pulled over and restarted the car..hasn't happend since

whoover

The car has some voltage threshold levels that trigger shutdowns before it gets low enough to prevent starting. If you sit with the car off and listen to music, after some period COMAND will shut down, for instance. It happens way before voltage drops so low that you can't start.

Skating around that threshold could be the issue. I noted that it happened as revs dropped to idle, when a marginal alternator would stop charging.

It's not certain, of course, but if it were mine I'd have the charging circuit checked.

Dome///AMG

That really sounds horrible, never heared about something like this so far.

sighting

This happened to me once when i placed it in neutral to coast down the hill, car shut down, loss of power steering and the brakes seeing as the booster had no air. I almost shat myself

i think i must have bent the brake pedal to get it to stop, thank god i was in the right lane and no one in front of me hit the brakes. i pulled over place it in park and started the car. Needless to say i have never tried that again

whoover

I'm not sure which is the more humiliating death, driving off a cliff in a C63 coasting or auto-erotic asphyxiation.

jrcart

Tough question, I guess it depends on if you're wearing a leather pig mask and a ball gag

-Marlin-

I'm going to guess it's something to do with the keyless go system. Or possibly replace the battery in your smart key. Maybe it lost signal and told the car you weren't near it, shutting it down.

whoover

Keyless Go is failsafe that way. It only needs authorization to start the car, not keep it running. Try it. Leave the car running, get out and carry the key far away. It keeps running.

sinape62

This happened once before to me as well. Only difference was I had been stationary at a stop sign. The car just died. I restarted it after placing it back in park as you mentioned. It never happened again. My car only has 6900 miles it. Non-p31. At the time it had the Eurocharged V4 tune.

chris135b

Hi,

This shutdown issue happened to me as well when the car was very new (< 1 month old). For me, I slowed to about 5 MPH, pulled off the road to make a U-Turn, I was in a full lock to the left. In the middle of the turn, the car just died. All the lights on the dash were on. I put the are in park, started it back up and never had the issue again.


I took the car to the dealer for a quick check. There were no codes thrown. If you search the board, you will find a thread talking about this issue. It only seemed to happen on new C63s. One poster mentioned he had the issue while driving at highway speed. That ought to put some hair on your chest!

-C

t4orce

OK I'm glad that I'm not the only one who has had this happen. I guess it might be an electronic gremlin that pops its ugly head up from time to time. The conditions you are all stating seems that same as me ie low speeds.

The one that had this happen at high speeds must have browned their nappa leather seats.

m a x i m u s

damn, sounds like a safety hazard to me. if there are enough complaints, it should trigger a recall. I'd go bother the dealership on this one.

Diabolis

Also happened to me. Only once, when the car was ~ 2 months old. No codes at the time and no issues since. Died in the middle of a car wash. Couldn't restart it in neutral - had to stop and put the car in P first.

CarHopper

Sounds like it happens to everyone with a facelift. It's like an initiation fee, one pair of undershorts.

roadtalontsi

its not keyless go related. probably some b.s. can glitch or internal software fault. If it happens again i'd go after a crank sensor.

sighting

I was going the speed of traffic at the time 70+- MPH..
and my cat had about 7k miles on as well

neoinarien

I just had this happen yesterday. An Internet search brought me to this surprisingly recent thread.

I was driving about 20 mph and started to make a right hand turn while braking to turn into a parking lot. Car just died and of course I lost power steering. Somehow I avoided hitting the curb.

Car into park. Restart. Drove fine.

2009 p30.

t4orce

Based on everyone's experience it only happens once in the lifetime of a c63... Hopefully. Fingers crossed.