Tahoe - restarting/cycling problems

[28sstony]

I have a 2003 Tahoe that is having issues. When you are driving down the road, it will basically restart itself. I'm not sure if that's exactly what it does but it acts like someone took the battery cables off for a split second. It dies, the security light flashes (sometimes), the ABS light comes on (sometimes), and most electrical items I have on are killed - AC (not heat), cruise control, tow/haul mode, and heated seats. The problem is that it does not do this consistently. It has failed to restart itself only a couple of times and I have had to coast to the side of the road or put it in neutral and turn the key on and off.

Has anyone seen this problem before? I have taken it to a dealer but am in a small town and they had never seen this issue before. Supposedly they checked all the grounds and couldn't find anything.

I'm not sure if this is related, but it also has an idling problem where you can see the rpms jump around and occasionally it will stall itself out.

Thanks in advance for any help or advice that you all can give me.

 

[clkelley]

Welcome to the neighborhood!

As for the idle rpms being erratic, I would clean the throttle body and MAF sensor first. If it has some miles on it you may want to go ahead and change the plugs and o2 sensors.

As for the cutting off while driving, find out if that dealer can put a data logger on her for you to run for a day or two, then when this happens they can look at what was going on at the time the issue repeated itself. That being said, it actually sounds to me like the ignition or an ignition relay is on it's way out.

 

[28sstony]

Thanks for the advice. I'll give it a whirl and see where I'm at. It's at least a direction to head in besides try to track down ground wires.

 

[clkelley]

lol, good luck hunting things down, let us know how it turns out...