I was driving home from work today and a couple of weird things happened. First, as i was driving, my gauges all came on and then went off as it does when you first start the car. Then a mile up the road the gauges lit up again, but this time i noticed the rpms went down to nothing, I realized the engine is off. I put the car into N and started it and continued on my way. Once I left my destination for home the car started fine and did not do it again. Battery is new as off 5-6months ago. Any ideas?

 

A bad battery can do that or the alternator.I think it sounds like the alternator if the car shut down especially if the battery is only 5-6 months old.I would clean the connections at the terminals because that happened to me with one of my older cars.It had acid build up on and around the terminals.

 

Yep I'd check the battery cables and grounds.

 

I took a quick look at the connections right now, im on lunch from work, they look pretty clean. I will take a closer look after work. When I started my car to go to work this morning it started but sounded like it was struggling and died real fast. Then started up ok right after that. Could it be some kind of fuel delivery problem? I dont have any hesitation or acceleration problems though? Car has about 35K miles on it, I have never changed the fuel filter.

 

My car died on my while driving when my alternator crapped out. Same thing happen to me with all the gauge lights coming on...then the car started hesitating and suddenly shut off.

 

Thats what I am leaning towards. Car hasn't died on me since that one incident, nor have the gauges illuminated. I went to Kragens to get some fuel injection gas treatment stuff. Took me three times to get the car to start and stay on. Drove to the gas station and put the bottle of gas treatment in, along with a tank of gas. Car started up just fine. When I left my mother-in-laws house car started fine. I noticed once I got home from my mother in law's that the ground wire from my battery to the body of the car was loose, so i tightend it down, not sure if that caused any issues. This morning before work and now on my lunch, the car started fine. So , i dunno, maybe it was a fluke. I have noticed this humming coming from my speakers. Its increases and decreases in loudness with the speed of the engine. Very annoying!! thnx for the comments guys!!!!

jp

 

I'm quite sure that it caused all of the problems.

 

After my last post i went to go back to work and the car wouldnt start. This time there was no power at all!! no dome light, couldnt turn the headlights on, no power locks, nothing. Took the battery in they said it was good AND it had 80% charge!!!!! That means the alternator is charging the battery still. My cousin called me after he spoke with one of his techs at work whom use to work for GM and whom owns a 01 trans am said what OLD 69 said. Check the connections. The neg. connection was clean. the pos. was super corroded. cleaned it up and it starts and I have power again. Hopefully that was it. thnx for the help guys!!!

 

Recently my 2001 Z momentarily died while driving. It cut out for just a moment, then came back on. I could hardly notice,except for the instument panel lighting up as though it was being started. Then one day I found the key fob wouldn't lock the car (or flash the lights either). I tried to start it and there was no response at all. Then I tried it again and it was OK.

I had been having a whistling sound from the engine which the dealer said is just alternator whine. Most of the time it was a soft sound, but sometimes when I turned on the engine when it was warm it was quite loud: that's when I had this problem.

I checked all of the electrical connections I could find, including the ones on the shock tower, and charged the battery. It didn't seem to take much time to reach full charge so I assume it was OK. Then I drove it with no whistling or problems. It was raining so I thought the moisture might be helping a bad connection somewhere. It has been dry for several days with no whistling that I could notice and no problems.

So it looks like it was a connection problem but why would that cause a whistling sound? Did you have any unusual sounds when you had your cutouts, and are they gone now?

 

Cutouts? I dont have any cutouts.

as far as the humming, its now gone. Not sure what causes it, but ever since i cleaned the positive connection everything is good.