2004 Corolla - Dies While Running Then Wont Start

[arctiva]

So ive read many of post about similar problems with simple things like alternator and battery's but here's are problem.

We have a 2004 corolla with 270k miles on 2 occasions driving down the road the car turns off and wont start up, all the dash lites work and radio and so on but the car wont even turn the starter over. The 1st time it happened we let it sit overnight went to look at it the next day and it started right up and drove fine for a week then it died again while driving and same symptoms. We let it sit overnight and it didn't start so we were looking at fuses and wiggling wires around and nothing was happening after alittle while out of frustration we tried it again and it just started right up so we were able to get it home at least.

Being the car dies while running that should eliminate a battery or alternator issue? And clearly points to a electrical / computer issue. In some random testing I pulled the 15 amp efi fuse while the car was running and the car died, after putting the fuse back in the car I repeated the symptoms of not turning over. After doing the wiggling of wire and fuses and waiting a few hours the car started right up.

Anyone have any thoughts?

I was thinking ignition switch prior to pulling the efi fuse and now wonder if the problem may be deeper. Anyone know what wiring goes through the ignition switch?

 

[IFMJohn]

What it sounds like to me is that once the computer fully powers down, the problem goes away. If I were you, next time this happens I would disconnect the negative battery cable for about 5 minutes and reconnect it. This will ensure that the computer reset its RAM. If it starts right up after that then it is likely an ECM issue. To be exact, there is a memory leak causing the RAM to be all used up. Once there is no more RAM for the ECM to use, it cannot continue processing all it's signals and returns causing it to stop giving signals (like the signal to the ignition coil or fuel injectors). If a toyota dealership can completely remove all the programming from the ECM and reflash it, that may fix the issue. If they cannot or an ECM reflash does not fix the issue, a new ECM may be in your future.