Help! Total shutdown on freeway
 

I was driving along at 75mph and the door locks started going up and down and various things started clicking and I lost total power.
I coasted to the side of the road and there it sits.

The fusible link was fried and when I made my own link out of some wire, the starter would turn, but no power elsewhere.

I looked in the interior fuse panel and the E/G IGN srs airbag fuse was blown(second from the right on the top row). I tried to put in another and it blew right away. I couldn't really check all the fuses because of the semi trailers going by at 80 mph brushing my feet with their tires. So, there could be some more bad fuses also.

"Luckily" I only had to walk about 3 miles in the cold and snow to my house.

I am gonna try to tow it home after dark with my reliable car (legacy).
Does anyone have any idea what could be wrong?

If things keep going like this, I'll have a SVX for sale soon!
Thanks.

If you have time, I can come down and check it out. I may not be of much help but I can try and see.

Just give me a call.

Lwin

update
 

Thanks for the offer Lwin. I don't know if I'll be home this weekend but I'll give you a call. How can I find your number?

The fuses that blew during this event are: #6 wipers, #7 rear defogger, #11 rear wiper, #12 brake light /horn, #15 Meter/srs lamp, #16 E/G ignition system -airbag, #17 radio, #18 cruise, ABS, power steering and of course the fusible link.
I haven't tried to replace anymore of the fuses yet. Do I have to get a fusible link from the dealer? Or could I use some sort of wire or universal link?

Where do I start?????

Could this be related to the warning lights that were possibly indicating a bad alternator? But the 4 year old battery never lost it's charge.


Could it be a cut wire somewhere?
Any help is appreciated.

This type of wholesale fuse blowing definitely points toward a short.

Check the mirror wires first. It's amazing that those little wires can do some major poo poo and make you think the car is dead.

When my FL went out, I went to Auto Zone and got a universal fusible link that had a fuse holder in it. I got a fuse of recommended amperage and some spade plugs. The male spade plugs worked nicely into the connectors in the fuse box. That did me until I got the OE fusible link in from the dealer (before I knew about subaruparts.com). The "rigged" FL now serves as an emergency backup, should I ever need it. BTW, mine was gone and replaced with a piece of heavy guage copper wire. It almost caused a melt down in my fuse box.

Another thing you might check is abrasion on the wires going to the battery. Perhaps it has rubbed up against something, rubbing off the insulation and is now shorting against metal. Also, check the connections going into the under-hood and in cabin fuse boxes. I know I'm rambling, but, I'm laying out things as I think of them, trying to start with the simple and work toward the complicated.

Re: update
 

give me a call when you have the time.

847.668.4079

Dgf, Here's my $.02, and I hope it helps. The car
runs on DC, right? Current goes from the battery all over, but through "seperate" circuits, for certain accessories/devices etc., right? These circuits typically have an inline fuse before the device, and the other end of the device goes to ground, right? So, how can you blow so many fuses?
Either something "is" bad with the alternator and it put out way to many volts/amps, or put out AC
that didn't get rectified/regulated to 12V (nominal) DC. Or, there is a short after the fuse
box, that is in common with several different circuits, such as through bad wiring (short).
I would suggest checking the alternator/regulated output without putting in new fuses, then otherwise checking for shorts at several of the devices to ground. A good wiring diagram would pretty much be a neccesity though. Assuuming (i know you shouldn't) that all the devices (radio, wipers etc.) aren't all fried, I'd suspect the latter, or else you're lucky all those fuses
blew as they did. Best wishes

Re: Help! Total shutdown on freeway
 

Did you ever figure out what was going on? I have the exact same electrical issues going on with my svx. The front wiper fuse number 6 instantly blows when I put a fuse in, the door locks continually go up and down and the horn is stuck on along with no brake lights and no power steering. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Re: Help! Total shutdown on freeway
 

Disconnect the alternator and check the voltage. My guess would be a failing regulator putting out way too much voltage. That is one way multiple fuses can blow. The other would be massive failure of multiple wires in the harness.