Henry Wang

I drove through a horrendous thunder storm last night in Northern Jersey, and believe a lightning struck close to my vehicle (I don't think it struck the vehicle, otherwise I would've known it, right?)

The immediate after effect was: my trunk lid release didn't operate, and my interior instrument panel went completely dark: the dashboard and the center console were all completely dark.

I was able to drive home, thinking I'd take it to the mechanic to look at the vehicle this morning, praying that it was just a blown fuse. But as I turned on the car, everything is working again!

Anybody has any insights into why this would happen? Could the heavy downpour or the near-lightning strike have caused it?

Thanks,

SteveE400

It is possible that an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) was generated by a nearby lightning hit. That may have temporarily "scrambled" your car's electronic mind, and by re-starting it, you rebooted all of the processors and all is back to normal. I would just drive the car and if all stays normal, just make note of it and carry on. If you have any lingering problems, I'd take it to a dealer for check-out. If the dealer feels that the EMP damaged any of the car's electronics, it would possibly be covered by your comprehensive insurance.

bop11

It is most assuredly a pulse from the lightning. Lightning struck one of the boats on our dock and boats hundreds of feet away suffered damage. Not unusual. Fortunately, the vehicle is tied closely to ground with the rubber tires being wet so only the program ram got scrambled and a reboot reset it . We were not so lucky on the dock. Many people lost instruments, I lost a sat-nav antenna even though it was not powered up.
That was a big storm last night and thankfully you were not injured and the car kept running. What you experienced is what we all would if someone exploded a nuke in the atmosphere.
Sidelight, back in the 60's a defector flew a MIG to an American airbase in Japan. When we inspected it, we were surprised to find the instruments were all tube based and not transistor. We later found out that this was on purpose because tubes are not sensitive to electromagnetic radiation blasts, and the Russians were working on "Air Blasts" to knock out the communications of our aircraft and earth based communication, and early detection systems.

Henry Wang

Thanks gents for the kind reply. Looks like I had a much closer call than I realized.

A bit more background: when this happened, I was actually letting in a young couple with two toddlers who were walking in the torrential downpour. So instant good karma!

Funny thing about the MIG, I knew that the MIGs used vacuum tubes, but all the stuff I read were people deriding the Soviets for using such backward technology. Now I know better!