BRW stalls, engine breaks down, all lights going out

Since some months my BRW sometimes stalls, MIL starts to burn but mostly goes out again and theres no Trouble Code stored. Today my wife drove to work in the morning, suddenly the engine stalled and broke completly down, all lights inside went off. She could start again and the engine started so so and could reach the Job, almost a van has hit her when the car broke down suddenly without any reason appearing by the car behind.

I suppose that there could be a break inside the main voltage supply anywhere or ground issues maybe from the battery to the starter or to the generator, or maybe something wrong with the ignition switch. If it would be only an engine problem, the lights and the air conditon wouldn´t break down what has happened as well.

Does anyone experience this issues and has an idea what could go wrong?   Thank you guys....

If your car is a 94, check the post at the fuse block under the hood. If it is not copper/brass, it is probably the problem.

Hi Fred, yes, it´s a 94! Hope you´re right!

The copper/brass one is no longer available from GM, but it can be acquired from a junkyard car.

You can scratch the top to check. If it looks like white metal, it is not the copper/brass one. They are not extremely difficult to replace. I do not know if there are any in the local junkyards, but I can check on my next visit. The white metal post can cause fires, so be cautious using it until you check it.

Hi Fred, I guess with the "post" you mean the stud on what the positive pole routed from the battery is fixed. Yes, on my car it´s out of brass. I removed the cable and cleaned it from oxidation, but there shouldn´t be any issues coming from, everything looked good. I checked all ground cables from batterie /engine, alternator connections, found nothing strange. Afterwards the engine ran smooth and I drove 6 miles without any issues….Or do you mean that theres a plate or something underneath the stud and provides a connection to the fuse box? I couldn´t remove the fuse box out of it´s plastic housing as yet, didn´t get it out, are there some invisible clips holding it down or how it´s to remove? I also screwed off the whole housing from  the body, didn´t see how to get out the fuse box....

The stud is the part I was referring to. That is the cheapest fix to look at first. Since it is copper/brass, I would go on to something else.

Next I would look at the ignition module, or the coil. If you replace the ignition module be sure to use white heat sink compound, not dielectric grease. The ignition module is heat sensitive, so check how long it is between startup and when the stalls car fails. If the time is about the same, I would consider the ignition module as suspect, because of heat soak. The coil is similar for heat soak issues.

Your failure appears to be an abrupt shutoff.

Fred, thanks for the advice. I will check the time the car starts to show issues. If the ignition module seems to fail, I´ll going to replace the coil as well. The parts are not that expensive. Good advice with the heat sink compound…
What I´m wondering about is that the car restarts after it broke down, I don´t know exactly how it worked after, just from the talks with my wife it ran just unsteady, if the temp of the module or the coil is the reason, the issues might come up after a time and shouldn´t get better afterwards since the parts keep their temp. But electronic sometimes does crazy things....

Hi Fred,
I would like to give a Feedback. The car is now perfect again. I checked all electrical plugs which are accessible, didn´t find anything what was strange. The only thing I did was to remove the cable to the fuse box on the brass stud and sanded it from oxidation. I´m sure that was the issue what came up, the car ran all the weak now and hasn´t one single jerk. It starts as crazy, starting wasn´t that satisfying before. On the fuses, I saw that they are for the injektors as well, maybe there was sometimes poor voltage….it was now kind of chance, but I´m happy anyway.  I will sand yet all accessible contact points at the alternator, the battery and ground straps to minimize the contact resistances.

Thanks a lot !

I am glad that you found the issue, and that the car is working properly again. A little dielectric grease on the connections will make them less susceptible to corrosion.