Okay I was driving down a highway Tuesday afternoon after leaving work. I'm going along around 75-80mph as normal. I get over to the right lane to take an exit coming up.
All of a sudden the whole car shuts off. I mean off off. No lights no blinkers, PS(no prob), Power Brakes (sucked) so I am rolling fast enough now so I can get off the highway and onto the shoulder of the road.
So I stop and turn the key back and forward again. Nothing. No dash lights or anything. I know the battery is still working because I have flashers, dome light, headlights and my radio beeped like I just shut the car off. It made no noise or anything when it happened.
So I pop the hood. look around the engine everything looks normal. I check the oil, it was fine. So I check the fuses. Now the 50W IGN fuse was blown.... Thankfully the ABS motor uses the same fuse so I get the screw driver and swap them out. Car starts right up...
Any ideas why this fuse would have blown just as I was driving along. Don't most fuses blow when you start the car up or shut off???

 

NO one else had this happen???

 

maybe a freak occurence?

 

a fuse breaks when there's more amps going in than what the circuit should be taking....

 

My old bug used to do that.. one by one the main fuses went just like that. I chalked it up to old fuses, maybe they got damp and started corroding (deep south humidity). Maybe my wires in the car were a little corroded and pulled more wattage or even shorted out against the chassis.
New fuses fixed the problem. I doubt you'll have the same problem again until ten years from now, unless you get a lot of humid weather or there really is a corroded or cut wires somewhere.
The bad thing about that main fuse blowing is that it doesn't point you to the system that may have a short in it.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by TruNinja619 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">a fuse breaks when there's more amps going in than what the circuit should be taking.... </TD></TR></TABLE>

yeah I am well aware of how fuses work...
I just found it odd that this fuse would go while I was going along at a constant speed not changing a thing.
But...
I think I may have found the reason... I have to look at my helms to check the wiring but I think it might be all coming from a faulty cell charger... This is why. I had almost the same thing happen to me last night. I looked and my cell chargers light was getting very dim. I pulled it out and everything went back to normal. If this is the case I am going to add an in-line 10W fuse to the cig lighter.

 

The fuse that blew.. is that the ignition fuse? Is the cigarette lighter on that fuse? I assume so since it is hot when the ignition is on. I use that hot line to trigger on my amplifiers. I don't know how much current that draws, but it's got to be more than your cell phone charger should be. So you're probably right - a faulty charger drawing way too much current (does it get hot?).

 

yeah that's why I was thinking it is on the same line since it's off when the ignition is off. I don't know if it gets hot because I was more concerned with getting off the highway and being able to stop since no power brakes is not fun at 80mph.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Sephro &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">no power brakes is not fun at 80mph. </TD></TR></TABLE>

sounds true.
I know that cig. lighter is on the ignition fuse actually - I'm one who wants the amp on even when the radio is off to keep it ready to go. And I really have to think my 1200W amp should pull more current through the remote wire than your cell phone. And I don't have any fuse inline with the lighter!
You should arm yourself with more fuses and do a test. I know you won't want to duplicate the whole highway 80mph thing, but at least find out if that charger is getting abnormally hot, if your lights go dim or if there's any warning before the fuse blows, etc.