Robert Schrader

I'm doing 80+ up I5 late in the evening, and suddenly the car loses engine power. I coast to the side, and the computer is telling me that I have a alternator/battery problem. The engine will turn over, but will not fire. The headlights will not come on. The turn signals, emergency blinkers, and other interior lights do work.

I call AAA and they tell me 25 minutes. So to preserve battery power, I turn off the emergency blinkers and turn on the left turn signal. When I do that the computer readout changes to 'no malfunction'. I start it and it drives normally. Ten miles down the road, the engine loses power for about 5 seconds, then all is normal again.

Any ideas what this could be?

Thanks
RMS

Robert Schrader

This turned out to be the radio! Aparently it was sending lots of arbitrary messages until it clogged the network and other messages to/from the engine couldn't get through.

mleskovar

Thanks for letting us know. Tallk about a weird one.

QQQ

Weird...

acr2001

Who the hell decided to design a system where the radio is not isolated from the ECU?!?!?! (I'm assuming we're talking about the CANbus here).

Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen if its true.
Did Microsoft maybe help MB with the electronics?

ChrisBrown

Yea no kidding. There is no reason the headunit should be communicating with anything other than a related accessory device.