After some extensive searching on the forum I am stuck on what happened to my car today. I was driving on the highway and felt a complete loss of power. The gas engine turned off and I cruised to a stop on the side of the road. The MFD showed the HV Battery on its last bar. I had the Red ! and Problem shown on my MFD. I recycled the car on and off a few times and one time the engine turned on for just a second and then off. Following that, the car the RED ! was gone but the car would not go into Ready status. I unplugged the battery for a few min and restarted again. The car drove and ran fine after that. After some searching the forum, I checked the 12V battery through the MFD and showed 12.4V charge with no load. With a load on it, it showed 12.0V and when I put the headlights and dome lights on it was down to 11.7 or so. Is this normal? Everything I read suggests that 12.0v is normal with the load on but didn't show results when you put extra load on (high beams, dome lights, etc). I also checked the inverter fluid for turbulence just in case and that was good. The read light showed up twice in the last month or so but it was just for a quick second and turned off immediately. The 12V was last changed in 02/10. The car currently has 165,000 miles on it. I am a little stumped on what happened. I was thinking my next step should be to go to the dealer to get the codes pulled to see what the issue was. I need to drive the car from DC to OKC next month and don't want any issues. Any thoughts or suggestions?
Have the codes pulled. The dealer can do that for you but they will charge. A generic OBD II device will also work, but will not get ALL of the codes. Check all of the fluid levels including the oil and the coolant levels in the radiator. You have to remove the black plastic cover on top of the radiator to access the cap. Make sure the engine is COLD before removing the radiator cap. Once you have the codes, post them back here and that should help to narrow down what the problem or problems might be. DC to OKC is a large distance. I would get the car checked out BEFORE making a trip like that.
It is not likely that any DTC will survive since you disconnected the 12V battery and don't currently have any warning lights on. You may have to wait until you have another problem before any DTC will be registered.
Duh, I missed on that one. Thank you Patrick for pointing out that the codes can be wiped out when the 12 volt is unhooked.
When you unhooked the 12 volt, you lost the setting for that. To fix it, you have to re initialize the auto window. Run the window down half way, then run it up and hold the button up for a second or two then release. At that point the window should be re initialized. More than likely you lost all of your presets for your radio too. All of that is normal when you unhook the 12 volt battery.
No. In the meantime, I suggest you check all engine compartment fluids (especially engine oil and engine radiator coolant at the radiator cap itself, not just the overflow container) to make sure all are good.
