For the past two months I've had an interesting electrical issue:

During normal cruising, I've had the radio (center console) randomly reset. The radio will cut off and then come back on and the display will say "Mazda RX8," like when you first start the car.

Very rarely, when I turn the car off after a normal drive the guages will sweep (like a ECU reset).

Today, as I was parking in my parking lot, the car had a "hic-up" (like it was going to stall) and all the warning lights came on. It almost stalled every time I barely turned the wheel left. The center console also had a "reset" event--all this while the engine was running. I cut the engine off and then the guages swept (like ECU reset). I restarted and the DSC light was flashing and the TCS was illuminated. I drove around the parking lot and those resolved itself. In all these events, I've never had a CEL stay on. These issues seem to happen after it rains.

What could be causing my ECU and center console to "reset" itself? Any wires I should specifically investigate?

FS

 

Hmm I can't say what it is.

But the radio issue- did you ever pull out the radio, the circuit board is very delicate and any little crack in a soder can cause a short. I've had similiar issues.


Maybe the battery connections are lose?

 

Nope, I've never messed with the radio unit.

It rained this evening, and after my drive when I turned it off, the gauges swept and you could hear the CD changer resetting itself. It seems to reset itself every time I shut if off after driving on wet roads. Are there wires or anything I should check underneath the car that could cause this?

FS

 

Have you tried doing one of the ECU resets? or taken the negative wire off the battery for a few seconds. It resets a lot of stuff, don't think it does the ECU tho...

 

sounds like water got where it aint supposed to. or humidity. check your battery terminals, there's a cable that leeches from the main harness could be loose. Check at the fuse block that your main fuse nuts are tight (120A) and not corroded. after this simple stuff it gets fun to find those little bastards lurking around.

The strange thing is if the stereo resets the battery has to be completely dead or the connection completely interrupted for this to occur. For the car to completely hiccup, i've had my 8 do this when modifying the intake, but the lights didn't come on. you don't have Cold Air Intake right?

 

Check your interior fuses, mine being RH Drive is on the left side of the passenger foot well.

There are 6 or so fuses under the cover, check that the ROOM fuse (15Amp) is not loose, or the wire loom connector has not worked off the fuse holder body.
I know if my room fuse (15Amp) is removed I get the ECU reset thing, etc, but mine is an 09.

Check there anyway...