You'd be suprised at what can happen to electronics.

There was a similar incident with a customer vehicle. In Houston, Texas I think. Whenever the lady drove her SUV out of the subdivision, at a particular point, the instrument cluster would go dead, or seats readjust, or something like that. Going home, nothing would happen. It would only occur when driving in a certain direction.

After much troubleshooting, it was found that there was was a microwave transmission in the area (weather, or traffic) and it was causing the instrument cluster to reset. It was only occuring in one direction because of the layout of the ground plane and the reset line on the circuit board. A slight modification of the board resolved the problem for the next model year.

__________________
Michael LaFleur

'05 E320 CDI - 86,000 miles
'86 300SDL - 360,000 miles
'85 300SD - 150,000 miles (sold)
'89 190D - 120,000 miles (sold)
'85 300SD - 317,000 miles (sold)
'98 ML320 - 270,000 miles (sold)
'75 300D - 170,000 miles (sold)
'83 Harley Davidson FLTC (Broken again) :-(
'61 Plymouth Valiant - 60k mikes
2004 Papillon (Oliver)
2005 Tzitzu (Griffon)
2009 Welsh Corgi (Buba)