Car dies when I hit a hard enough bump.

[deupdike]

Okay my 99 eclipse gs sometimes dies when I hit a bump hard enough. Basically I hit the bump, the gauges all drop and I have to pull over to the side of the road. I wait probably 45 seconds and the car will start and run fine until I hit another bump. It also only happens when the car is hot. The last time I had trouble I was driving from VA to PA and it took over 200 miles of driving before the bumps started killing me. Any ideas what could be killing me?

 

[Ducky90GSX]

Have you check your battery terminals and connection, your ground, battery levels???

 

[AnewDSM]

I haven't had this problem... But the first thing i would do is hand check all of the wires that are in the engine bay. If it has anything to do with heat, that's where you need to check. A wire could be exposed and when the casing gets warm enough it could droop and hit metal causing it to ground out.

 

[92EagleAWD]

One of my friends had a smiliar problem, tuned out his battery was actually hitting the bottom of the hood which would kill the car and then make the terminals loose all the time. Might not be your issue, but worth a look.

 

[Jay's_GSX]

maybe the battery braket is loose, try tightening it up and check the positive/negative on the battery. good luck!

 

[naw9119]

had the same problem once battery was shorting out on the hood. Is your battery bolted down?

 

[awddarrell]

i had this happen to my 95 talon from shifting hard, it was the plug between the valve cover and the intake manifold the retaining clip was broken and it had popped up a little bit and loose connection, the car would die and then i would try to start it and it would only crank, push it back on and it was running good as new just an idea for you!

 

[whitesmoke]

happened on my eclipse too. kept shorting out when it hit the hood

 

[deupdike]

Okay i never thought about the batt shorting out on the hood. I'll have to check that. I talked to a mechanic who bowls where I work and he said it could be my ECU dieing. He said he's seen that before. Has anyone ever heard of that happening? And I should mention that my batt, plugs, wires, coils, and crank sensor are brand new cause I thought before that might be the problem. I haven't replaced the cam sensor yet. I've been driving the car around between work and school and what not and haven't had an issue. That makes me pretty sure it needs to be hot first. but il check the batt thing and let you know what I find out.

 

[XiKeiyaZI]

Before you move on to thinking the ECU is dead, check the things that are more readily able for you to check. This would be the battery, as everyone has wisely suggested.

When hitting a bump, you're either allowing a loose wire to jostle just enough to lose connectivity, your battery wires to shake loose momentarily, a wire to touch and ground out on something(the scariest), or your battery to hop upwards and ground out on your hood. All of this is bad, and if left unchecked could lead to greater issues.

You said that the battery is new. Has this been happening since before you replaced the battery or after? Either way you should make sure that the battery is firmly held in place and that the cables are latched into the terminals securely and cannot move. Do these things and then post back with results.

 

[deupdike]

Alright I'm pretty sure it can't be the hood. It's stalled right now in the garage and the hood's up so it's not grounding there. I was going from school to the gas station and it quit so I tried to go home and it kept stalling. I eventually got it here, turned it off, and now it won't start.

So I guess that means its not the battery shorting on the hood. I don't know about a bad wire yet. I haven't had much time to check stuff out because of school and work. I did find one wire that was broken but I don't know where the other end is. The wire is blue with a yellow stripe and it's on the passenger side near the radiator. I am crappy with wires so Idk what it's to.

 

[moronthr33]

i would check all the connectors that you can find i had somthing simular happen to me once the connector clips on my MAF broke and when i hit a bump or had a harsh shift the connector would come out just enough to turn the motor off but would start back up