On Monday, while driving slowly through a parking lot, I unknowingly drove right into two of the deepest potholes I've ever seen in my life. They were completely submerged in a large pool of dirty water, so on approach, it looked like an innocent pool of shallow water on the pavement. However, in the middle of the shallow pool lurked two 6-8" deep holes. I was only driving about 2 mph when I went through the holes, but just my two left tires went through them so the truck did some severe twisting. As the front left tire hit the first hole, the truck slammed down into it, then back up, then back down as I hit the second hole. The impact was so hard that it literally shut off the engine.

I was able to restart the truck and park, but when I finished eating lunch and went to start it again, it took a couple of tries. At that point, I left it running and got out to have a look under the hood. I thought perhaps I had splashed water all over the engine or knocked something loose. All looked good, so I then shut the hood, at which point the engine shut off again. I was able to start it back up with no problems, and it has not shut off on me again since and has actually been driving quite well....but this little episode has had me concerned.

Has anyone ever had that happen before? Is there some sort of impact sensor that kills the engine in case of an accident? Or is this likely due to something else, like sloshing gas in the fuel tank and disrupting supply to the the fuel pump?

By the way, the truck in question is a 2008 1500 Hemi Quad Cab with 50,000 miles. I also still have the 2001 in my signature, but could not fit the 2008 specs in the signature block (too many characters).

Thanks for the input.

 

Check all the wire connection blocks, including the ecm, sounds like you have a wiring connection problem, or also possibly a loose battery connection. Make sure you disconnect the battery BEFORE you start pulling connections, look for corrosion and loose connections. This sort of problem is not all that uncommon, sounds like the severe jarring actually loosened something up. Good idea to also check as many ground connections as you can find, as this is the other side of the connection field.


Good Luck!!

 

do you have a bunch of stuff HANGING from your key ring...?

check lower ends of the battery cables... loose/rust/corrosion.

and the connectors for the computer...

 

I know this is an older thread, but I recently had the truck worked on and may have found the cause of my issue.

The truck had actually died on me again recently while coasting to the stop sign at the end of my street. At that point I decided it was dangerous to keep driving the truck without getting this issue corrected. The lasy thing I wanted was to lose power steering and brakes while on the highway. Since the truck is still under warranty from the dealership I purchased it from, I took it there and asked them to look into it.

The next day they called and said they had discovered the crank position sensor was a bit loose and suggested replacing it, as that could be the cause my shutoff problem. It made sense to me, and since the work was covered by warranty, it was a no-brainer.

The truck has not shut off on me any more since, but not much time has passed so I will continue to monitor and will report back here. Hopefully my problem is solved.

I can report that the new crank sensor seems to have made a big difference in the overall performance of the truck. I had lamented in another thread that it had been quite sluggish lately, and the MDS seemed to turn on and off more often than it should. That seems to have subsided significantly, and the truck seems to have much more pep and acceleration, and is getting better fuel economy. So, hopefully I've solved two problems at once...