We have a 2003 Protégé. It starts, but when driving it, the car starts losing power. The ABS light comes on, the radio cuts out, the heat stops working and then the car dies and will not restart.


We have replaced the battery, starter and checked the alternator.




Does anyone know what could be wrong with it?

 

sounds like a bad alternator that cant charge the battery, or a short somewhere, or a loose system ground. if you dont get blown fuses, check for a bad ground. when the car dies, does it cranks? do you get any indicator lights? is it totally dead? do an experiment to check for ground: get one booster cable and connect it from the battery neg (-) pole of the battery to a metal point at the engine and start the car. check if your problem persists. if not, you might have a bad ground strap. there is a ground point at the engine mount on the passenger side. check if it is good. i dont remember if there are any grounding straps on the engine. look around. when you said the alternator was checked, how did they check it? if you start the car and while running disconnect one of the battery connections and the car dies, the alternator is either bad or has a bad connection. some people dont like to do that test but i have done it with good results. if you have a volt meter, check battery voltage. should be close to 13 volts. start the car. check battery voltage with the engine running. the voltage should be around 14 volts. if you get the same reading as when the engine is not running, you could have a bad alternator or connection issues. check the wiring at the fuse box in the engine bay (close to the air filter) check for good connections and check the main link fuse.

 

this use to happen on another car i use to own it turned out ground battery cable was loose; check your battery cable