Occassionally I am a little agrresive in how I drive my 2004 Mazda MPV Minivan. It is a V6. Twice in the past few weeks when I am aggressively hitting the gas pedal all of the lights come on the dashboard and I cannot accelerate any more. The power steering just stops too. I can barely rev the engine almost as if I am in Neutral but it feels week.
I then have been lucky where I can move the car to the side of the road and stop it. The first time it happened I tried starting it again and nothing happened. Tried again a minute later and it was fine.
The second time, after I stopped it and turned the mini-van off completely, it started up just fine again.
The vehicle feels a little strange when I accelerate like it wants to do it again. My mechanic has said they need to replicate it to diagnose what is happening but you think it would be stored in the computer.
Note that the only commonality I can think of with it is that I am usually going 40 - 50 mph- somewhere around there.
Confused and frustrated with Mazda…
Zachary
zsfeinstein@yahoo.com
Being a little aggressive in your driving style doesn’t hurt anything, or at least it shouldn’t.
You say, “all of the lights come on the dashboard and I cannot accelerate anymore.” It sounds like your engine is stalling, or nearly stalling. The fact that the power steering stops working reinforces this idea.
If one of the lights that comes on when this happens is the Check Engine Light then one or more trouble codes should be stored in the computer, and the code(s) should help your mechanic figure out what’s wrong.
Is the Check Engine Light on? Does it come on when this happens? Just out of curiosity, has the fuel filter ever been changed?
It “feels like” a basic electronic shutdown - kind of like the kind you see in the movies. But then the emergency lights come on while the basic electronic necessities are no more. I hope that makes sense.
I will be honest in that I did not have the time to carefully check which lights were off or on given it was a big issue of safety and relief that I was ok.
I think I had the fuel filter changed within the past few years.