I have a 98 GS400 and love it but lately it's been giving me problems when it rains. After driving it in the rain, the electrical system goes haywire. The power windows stop working, the AC doesn't work, power locks don't work, sometimes I can't put the car into reverse or drive and the last time it stalled whenever I put it into drive. This has been happening the past year and it always happens after a big rain storm. After everything drys out, the car goes back to normal. Anyone have ideas on what's going on?

 

is ur fuse boxes completely sealed? interior ones or the ones under ur kick panels? anyway for water to get into the fuse boxes under the hood and the ones by the door? is the rubber cover on ur driverside door completely in? watertight? check those 1st i would assume since its a problem of the rain its prolly because of stuff exposed to water

 

This isn't going to be easy to resolve. Does the car work alright if it has just been sitting in rain storm? Or does it begin to mess up after being driven in rain storm? If it's after driving I would guess it's from road spray and probably some connection under the hood getting wet from missing body components. If does it after just sitting there I would venture to guess it's a leak into an interior component. I know this doesn't help much but it might limit your search area.

 

Do you have weather stripping surrounding the engine bay?

 

Does the area around your kick panel ever get wet??

Jonny

 

Make sure the compartment to your ecu is secured and closed. Also check the rubber gasket on it. For so many components to go haywire I would bet on something going on with the main ECU

 

The one on the passenger side is missing. Can this cause problems? It doesn't seem like a big deal.

Kick panel area is dry. I took it apart and it seemed dry.

Main ECU was all dry as well.

 

Happens after driving.

On a couple of occasions, the starter would crank by itself. It was like it was posssessed.

 

Its not wet now, but probably gets a bit of moisture on rainy day. Just go to an autoparts store and buy the off the shelf weather stripping with 3m backing that is the closest in size to the OEM stripping.

 

This is beginning to sound like you're missing one or more of the lower engine bay splash sheilds. What you need is a photo of the under carriage of complete stock GS and compare it to yours. A loose connection under the hood could also be part of the problem. This combination when combined with the force of the water spray hitting the loose connection COULD be shorting things out. When you get the issue resolved let us know what it was.

 

Ok. I think I know what the problem is as I was able to duplicate the conditions. I had a windshield crack from a pebble and took it to an autoglass repair shop a while back. Apparently they did a lousy job. I put a garden hose to the windshield by the area that may have been causing the problem which was the driver side fuse panel. I kept the garden hose there for about 10 minutes to simulate a big rain storm and sure enough the problems came back. Anyways, taking it to the dealer on Tuesday to rectify the situation. Thanks gentlemen for the advice.

 

This is good news and information to tuck away in the memory banks. Was the windsheild completly replaced or just a chip repair?