Hey Folks, my 94 SC400 is experiencing an unusual, intermittent problem; a total electrical failure, which only lasts for a few minutes at a time. Car has been problem free for the previous 5 yrs, suddenly this started about 4 mos ago.
Usually happens once to twice/month, and normally when I'm in the start mode, turning the key in the ignition has led to this. The symptoms are complete loss of response and no apparent electrical power on any device. Within 30 secs to a couple minutes, the systems come back, it seems to recover, and then able to do a normal start. Car runs normally after these incidents.
Most recent episode happened when my remote door lock/alarm system was clicked to "open" the doors, the sound was obvious that I'd had another failure. This took about 4-5 minutes recovery, but once again, full apparent recovery!
Am I on my way to some sort of computer failure?

 

Clean all the cars major ground points. One or more is dirty.

 

So does this only happen when you are about to start the car? If so, it could be a loose battery terminal. It used to happen to me all the time. I too thought it might have been some kind of electrical failure. But turned out to be a loose battery terminal.

 

have you tried changing the battery?

 

Thanks for the response. I've swapped the battery out a over a yr ago, and it doesn't seem that the el. probs showed up coincident with the swap, however, I'll check terminals. Also, will inspect the alternator, as suggested.
OK, the 2nd-to-last time the problem showed, I remotely opened the doorlocks, so that failure didn't involve the starter sequence.
Last week, I had the above flr and one other, making a total of 2 for the week. The system recovers after about 2-5 minutes. Hate to say it was because of a 'door slam', but that was the moment of recovery.

Thanks for your inputs. Will keep you advised.

 

Something kind of like that happened to my SC400, I went to 7-11 went inside came back out and nothing at all, no power locks, no windows, no lights, nothing. Sat there for a few minutes wondering what the hell happened and noticed the "door open" light on my cluster was BARELY BARELY visible, this was at night, and I still barely saw it. Poped the hood, checked the terminals and one was slightly loose. Got a wrench out of my trunk tightened it and never had another problem with that.

 

Thanks for those responses. Checked the battery terminals and VOILA! There was the likely culprit, right there. Loose negative terminal. Will tighten up ASAP.

Whew!!! I had visions of computer replacement.... Again, thanks for the help out there. T.P.