so I had to go rescue a family member from the side of the freeway just now. Their car just DIED on the freeway while driving. Like completely, going 80 at the same time. Its been having problems starting for the past week, where it would click, no power. The remedy was to remove/replace the positive terminal and it started right up.
She also said the lights were flickering before it died. It is a 2000 Camry 5S-FE with 160k on the clock. The car was pressure washed 1 week ago, it's been having intermittent problems until now.

Any help would be welcomed, it is their only car, they need to get to work on Monday!

 

You don't give us a lot to work with. Usual suspect for sudden complete failure at speed is timing belt. Check all the main fuses 30amp+. Does it turn over but not start?

 

what else do you need? It starts just fine, drives fine. the events are strangely random. The idle is also extremely low too. Could something be moist still? We have also had wet weather for the past few weeks too

 

ok it seems to have corrected the low idle. I have it running for a while to test it out.

 

Well that's a necessary piece of information. From your first post it sounded as if it died and was DOA on the side of the road.

 

I just went and drove it hard, to heat up the engine, drove just fine. It's the random cutting out I'm worried about

 

I had the same thing happen to me with my brothers 1985 Supra. The problem in my case was an internal short on the starter solonoid. This can cause the car not to start all of the time (all you get is the click of the solonoid even with a fully charged battery), but even worse than that it can short while the car is running. When this happens it puts a huge load on your electrical system, lights can flicker or go dim completely. In my case the lights rapidly dimmed and the car died.

After troubleshooting the electrical harness to the starter (everything checked out fine), I pulled the starter (which has the starter solonoid built in) and it tested bad (pulled tons of voltage and failed to engage the starter.

Replaced the starter and all was well.

Good luck, I hope that this helps you fix your problem or at least eleminate this as the source of the problem.

Dave H.

 

Was the engine pressure washed or just the exterior? Many times i've had cars towed in after being detailed and the spark plugs are immersed in water. Don't think you mentioned if the engine was running rough, as this should be the case if water got to any of the plugs. pull the plug wires and if there is water you will need to use compressed air to blow out the holes and then either replace or sandblast the plugs