I have a 2006 Hyundai Elantra. It just turned over 100,000 miles. The other day we were pulling into a parking lot. I went to hit the gas pedal and nothing was happening. There was no power. The power steering went out as well. The check engine, oil, and battery light came on when all of this happened. When you try to start the car it tries to crank but can’t. The battery is fine. Had a mechanic come tow it and had it for two days and said they replaced the crank connectors. Went and picked it up yesterday evening. Drove it for about an hour and turned off on my road towards my house and again without warning it happened again leaving me stuck on the side of the road. Mechanic came back and got it and said he didn’t know he would check it out again. The car gives no warning that this is about to happen. Does anybody know what it might be?
I assume that you mean battery terminal connectors?
it seem s that your mechanic is on the right track. my guess would be an alternator/voltage regulator problem.
the fact that it happens when you are turning may be significant tho. it could be the pulley on the power steering pump binding up.
I m no expert, but I don t think its anything major
The check engine, oil, and battery light came on when all of this happened.
This is normal when an engine stops…all these lights come on.
Did the mechanic find any codes in the computer?
It does sound like a sensor is affected by heat and shutting down the engine. This is common and he replaced the most often cause…the crank sensor.
I’m sure if he has it again he will find the faulty sensor.
Yosemite
When an engine suddenly stalls, all of those lights will go on, and your power steering will go out. So, clearly, the engine stalled.
What is not clear to me is “it tries to crank but can’t”.
Does the starter actually turn the engine when you turn the key?
…and if so…
Does it turn the engine at the normal speed that you would expect before the engine starts?
How has it been determined that the battery is “fine”?
Has the alternator output been checked?
If the crank sensor was already replaced, perhaps it is time to look at the cam sensor.
I’m sorry, as that is the best guess that I can give at this point, but I’m sure that there will be other helpful replies. And, if you can respond to my questions above, it will help others to respond.
When you say it trys to crank, but can’t, what exactly do you mean by that?
When you turn the key from “on” to “start”, what happens? A clicking sound, but no rrr rrr rrr cranking sound? Or no sound at all when you turn the key to “start”?
The turning off during a turn could possibly be due to a bad ignition switch. Do you have a lot of other things on your key ring? If so, try just using the key by itself, see if that helps.
If your mechanic can’t duplicate the problem, he will have a hard time fixing it…Guesswork can get expensive…
Have the fuel pressure checked. When the fuel pump goes, usually there is no code since the fuel pressure is not monitored by the computer.
This is the worst kind of problem. Not in cost to fix but actually trying to reproduce it.
When “all the lights” come on are you sure all the normal ones show? I ask because if any one is out it likely points to a poor connection or ground but again pure conjecture.
Is the OP going to return to answer our questions?
Story of my life. All the pretty ones run away…and I bathed!!!
Yosemite
I worked in a high tech electronic factory for over 30 years. What you describe we called “intermittent”. And, intermittents can run up an incredible bill trying to duplicate the failure. One runs the unit in the cold chamber, and hot chamber and in vibration hoping to induce the failure. Better to spend money in the shop finding the failure than finding it in flight!
This is exactly why a few years ago I took my Sienna into the dealer and told them to replace the charcoal cannister. It was very intermittent, Sometimes would run for months, and for the cost of one or two NO TROUBLE FOUND visits to a mechanic the cannister was replaced and the problem solved.
In our case, the tech is the difference. Once we got an area-nav box back with a failure. Not only is this primary aircraft control, but also at that time it cost at least $2000 just to get the box out of the aircraft and back to us, according to the bean counters.
The tech was an old high school classmate. Smart enough, I guess. But, I was the box expert (I brought the project up with the design engineers and trained the other techs) and I knew by the symptom the only component that could cause that exact failure. The chip cost a couple bucks plus a few minutes to replace it.
I told her and she said, “No! I must see the failure myself!”
She ran to the boss who was not an expert on anything and the knucklehead agreed with her. So, at a loss of $2000 , the box with a known intermittent failure went back into the airplane, instead of replacing the part costing a couple bucks.
Dumb! Really dumb.
I realize not all mechanics are like that, but knowing some are is why when I can, I troubleshoot my own problem and sign the waiver on guarantee.
Let me know what plane that was. I’m going to Arizona the end of the month and I’d rather avoid a sudden stop…landings ok…crashings always hard on the body.
Yosemite.
^ They say “any landing you can walk away from” is a good landing!
Am I safe in assuming an '06 Hyundai has four coil-on-plugs, vs one remote coil pack? Hot running failure sounds like a bad ignition part, but no way did four go bad simultaneously!