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2019 Yukon XL just shut down as I rolled into a parking lot--everything shut down

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kendall
  • Start date Start date
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Kendall

2019 Yukon XL just shut down as I entered a parking lot and power steering locked up. I pressed parking brake to stop and hit "start engine" button, dash told me to shift into park, then I restarted vehicle. Dash then said to "roll down and roll up driver window", did that and noticed radio stations were gone. Let the car sit for about 30 minutes, started back up and radio stations were back, but the compass read "CAL" as if it was re-calibrating itself. PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF ANYONE HAS AN IDEA OF WHAT COULD BE GOING ON--THANK YOU FOR ANY ASSISTANCE WITH THIS
 
Kendall said:
2019 Yukon XL just shut down as I entered a parking lot and power steering locked up. I pressed parking brake to stop and hit "start engine" button, dash told me to shift into park, then I restarted vehicle. Dash then said to "roll down and roll up driver window", did that and noticed radio stations were gone. Let the car sit for about 30 minutes, started back up and radio stations were back, but the compass read "CAL" as if it was re-calibrating itself. PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF ANYONE HAS AN IDEA OF WHAT COULD BE GOING ON--THANK YOU FOR ANY ASSISTANCE WITH THIS
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What you experienced was a total, momentary loss of electrical power to the entire vehicle. All of those strange symptoms you saw afterward - the dash asking you to roll the window down and up, the radio presets temporarily vanishing, and the compass saying "CAL" - are the exact symptoms of the main computers completely losing battery voltage. It's exactly what the truck does when you disconnect the battery with a wrench and hook it back up. The window prompt is just the computer needing to re-learn where the top and bottom of the window track are so the auto up/down feature doesn't crush anyone's fingers.

Because this happened right as you were entering a parking lot, it was almost certainly caused by a loose physical connection that shifted from the momentum of the turn or hitting the driveway transition.

The two most notorious culprits for this on the 2015-2020 GM trucks are the battery terminals and the mega fuse distribution block. If you pop the hood and look right on top of your battery, you'll see a plastic block with several thick power wires bolted to it. The 10mm nuts holding those heavy cables down are famous for wiggling just slightly loose over time. When you hit a bump or make a turn, the cable shifts, arcs, and the entire truck instantly shuts down and reboots.

Grab a wrench and make sure every single nut on that distribution block is completely tight. Also, verify that your main negative and positive battery clamps are clean and tight enough that you can't twist them by hand. If all of those are completely tight, you may have a battery with an internal short or a bad main ground wire bolted to the frame, but 9 times out of 10, simply tightening those nuts on top of the battery will completely cure this.
 

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