Hello all, hoping someone on here can help identify what happened with my car yesterday. I’ve got a 2014 Fiesta ST. Currently has 54k miles, and I’m the original owner. The car has no prior history for electronics faults (besides the typical Sync module sometimes getting stuck in a loop which kills the battery if you don’t catch it, but that has only happened twice, and you can tell when it happens because the Sync screen becomes unresponsive to touch). The car has also been driven cross country a few times with zero issues, and has a brand new battery as of December of last year.
I was driving from my apartment in Phoenix to Los Angeles, and near Indio I noticed what appeared like all of my lights on the dashboard came on. About 2 seconds later, everything electronic went out - And I mean everything. All the lights, the odometer, the climate control, the tach and speedometer, and (most concerningly), the electronic power steering and electronic throttle body. The Sync system stayed on, but went black with a loading bar and displayed a message saying something like “Battery saver mode…” or something like that. The car stayed running, but without a working throttle body, I couldn’t do anything. This was very dangerous, as I had no way to even signal or put on my four ways to indicate there was an issue. Fortunately, I was near an exit ramp, and coasted up and to a safe place on the side of the road.
I attempted to turn the car off, and found I couldn’t. Every time I pressed the button to cut power, nothing would happen. Right before I was going to just stall it out, the button worked. As soon as it shut off, the odometer came back on like normal when you turn the car off. I turned the car back on, and everything powered up fine, but there were lots of lights on the dash. Then, 2 seconds later, everything died again. Again, the car stayed running and fought me turning it off. I tried this a couple more times, and not getting anywhere, decided to try one last thing. I reached into the engine bay, wiggled and twisted the positive battery cable, and worked it off of the terminal. I let it sit for a couple minutes, then reconnected it. When I fired the car up again, a bunch of lights came on. CEL (not flashing), I think a trans fault light, ABS, airbag, etc.. I figured these were false alarms, shut the car down, fired it back up, and they all went away. I drove around town for a couple minutes, then got back on the highway. I resumed by drive, got to LA, then turned around and drove back. I never encountered a single issue the rest of my drive.
Now, I should mention that a few weeks back, on my drive home from work, I noticed a couple lights came on my dashboard for a very brief moment. I saw the ABS and at least one other light I couldn’t make out briefly flash, but then go away. Nothing else occurred, but I thought that was very odd. I have no idea how many lights actually came on, because again, it was very brief. I just figured it was an odd glitch or something or that I was just seeing things.
Has anyone seen anything like this before, or does anyone have any idea what I can try to test? The car is out of warranty, and I know the dealer would be practically worthless here anyways, as intermittent issues like this are almost impossible to find. I’m just very, very hopeful someone has seen this before and figured out what was wrong, as this is a seriously scary thing to have happen, especially if it happened somewhere at night with a limited shoulder and I had no way to even turn my flashers on..
I was driving from my apartment in Phoenix to Los Angeles, and near Indio I noticed what appeared like all of my lights on the dashboard came on. About 2 seconds later, everything electronic went out - And I mean everything. All the lights, the odometer, the climate control, the tach and speedometer, and (most concerningly), the electronic power steering and electronic throttle body. The Sync system stayed on, but went black with a loading bar and displayed a message saying something like “Battery saver mode…” or something like that. The car stayed running, but without a working throttle body, I couldn’t do anything. This was very dangerous, as I had no way to even signal or put on my four ways to indicate there was an issue. Fortunately, I was near an exit ramp, and coasted up and to a safe place on the side of the road.
I attempted to turn the car off, and found I couldn’t. Every time I pressed the button to cut power, nothing would happen. Right before I was going to just stall it out, the button worked. As soon as it shut off, the odometer came back on like normal when you turn the car off. I turned the car back on, and everything powered up fine, but there were lots of lights on the dash. Then, 2 seconds later, everything died again. Again, the car stayed running and fought me turning it off. I tried this a couple more times, and not getting anywhere, decided to try one last thing. I reached into the engine bay, wiggled and twisted the positive battery cable, and worked it off of the terminal. I let it sit for a couple minutes, then reconnected it. When I fired the car up again, a bunch of lights came on. CEL (not flashing), I think a trans fault light, ABS, airbag, etc.. I figured these were false alarms, shut the car down, fired it back up, and they all went away. I drove around town for a couple minutes, then got back on the highway. I resumed by drive, got to LA, then turned around and drove back. I never encountered a single issue the rest of my drive.
Now, I should mention that a few weeks back, on my drive home from work, I noticed a couple lights came on my dashboard for a very brief moment. I saw the ABS and at least one other light I couldn’t make out briefly flash, but then go away. Nothing else occurred, but I thought that was very odd. I have no idea how many lights actually came on, because again, it was very brief. I just figured it was an odd glitch or something or that I was just seeing things.
Has anyone seen anything like this before, or does anyone have any idea what I can try to test? The car is out of warranty, and I know the dealer would be practically worthless here anyways, as intermittent issues like this are almost impossible to find. I’m just very, very hopeful someone has seen this before and figured out what was wrong, as this is a seriously scary thing to have happen, especially if it happened somewhere at night with a limited shoulder and I had no way to even turn my flashers on..
) than other cars, usually when an alt dies the car will run off of battery power for some time, right? I'd expect to see a charge system fault, lights dimming, and the car gradually draining the battery, but this was like a light switch being flipped.
