I searched to see if anyone else has had this problem, didn't find anything quite like it...

Today while on the freeway going to work, I was running about 70-75mph when the engine completely lost power. It kept running at first, but the car was completely coasting, no power delivery at all. I had been working through traffic, and had just made a pass of a slower car in the left lane. I downshifted manually (5AT) to 3rd, and had just lifted and upshifted when the power went away. I initially thought the transmission died, but after coasting to the right shoulder (that took some creative lane maneuvers - the freeway was 5 lanes wide where this happened) the engine stalled. It will crank and start, run very briefly before stalling again (5 seconds or so) and will not respond to the throttle at all. While running, no warning lights are on.

Called roadside assist and the car was towed to the dealer, who probably won't be able to look at it until tomorrow.

Stuff I find interesting about this: no warning at all, car was running perfectly normal and strong before it happened; I'm amazed something is so screwed up it can't go into "limp home" mode of some kind; sometimes it idled a bit rough for about 10 seconds after a cold start if the car sat for several days, but it rarely sat that long and never had any other kind of problem.

It's an 04 5AT coupe, no mods. I'll post info from the dealer after they tell me what they find.

maybe something was in your fuel and your filter didnt catch it. Something might have gotten though the air filter too. Doubtful, but just some possible causes. Something might have gotten into your gas tank and when you downshifted and accerlated strongly the engine may have sucked it up, restricting gas flow. Just my two cents.

-Mike

crank position sensor recall .........."cause the engine to stop running without warning during vehicle operation, which could result in a crash "

to many problems

That explains it...

I thought maybe the crank position sensor which has been know to fail, but you say no lights. (unless the CEL is burned out) Strange.
Perhaps bad fuel, plugged air inlet, broken power wire, got to be something basic. IMHO

G/L with the repair
C.

My 6MT Coupe went into limp mode for the first time this morning. Luckily I was not on the highway at speed. Anyway, the dash was lit up and I could not rev past 2K or so. I shut it off and popped the hood to see if there was anything obvious, like disconnected MAF, but there was nothing. I went to crank it back up and it started just fine with full power. However, the SES light was on. The OBDII reader reported 'P2135' which is a "throttle position sensor A/B voltage correlation" error. WTF???

weird, and also kinda scary, i got an 05 5AT

Dealer said they found no fault codes, just a defective MAF. Don't know how they found that out, but they ordered a replacement and installed it, and the car is fine now. Weird, and I'm still surprised there wasn't some kind of limp home mode programmed into the system even if that sensor stops working.

I think it was slowly going bad for some time, as the car idles much better now than it had been for some time. The engine feels better, in a way I can't completely explain. It had been feeling/sounding kind of coarse to me - not rough or missing, just not as refined and smooth as I recalled it being when new. I figured it was just me, but now it seems that the MAF wasn't 100% healthy for quite some time, because the car feels and sounds non-coarse again... if that make any sense.

Although I (obviously) wish the car hadn't broken down, the entire experience with road side assistance, the dealer, and the repairs was entirely satisfying. Better than most of the service experiences I've had with Lexus and BMW dealerships in the past few years.

^ That makes sense since those with cold air intakes experience the same darn thing!