gdnelis

I took your advice and so far it has paid off. Upon swapping my negative battery cable, I cut open the old one and found all types of corrosion. The worst of it was at the end of the thinner wire that grounds to the frame behind the passenger side front wheel.

I've been struggling with a very similar issue for almost a year now. It is so sporadic. Sometimes it goes months without happening, others it is on back to back days. Mine started with the occasional "Service Theft Deterrent System" message that would pop up when the truck started. The dash light that accompanied it would go away after the next start. Usually on the 2nd or 3rd time, my radio which is always tuned to a Sirius channel would also flip to FM 87.5 when it would occur. After 2-3 instances of that message pop up occurring, I'd experience the full loss of power. Initially, removing the negative terminal and putting it back on solved the problem. More recently, I have to remove the negative terminal for 30+ minutes before it will show signs of life again. Mine almost always goes full dark when the starter engages, meaning I'd hear the starter begin to crank for a millisecond and then everything will flatline and be a total loss of power. In one instance, I opened the door and saw the dash come to life, only to go full dark before I could get the key in the ignition. The timing of it went from occurring every few months, to about a month apart, and more recently it's been skipping the "Service Theft Deterrent System" message and going straight to full loss of power . In the last 9 days ago I have had the full loss of power occur 3 times, with the 2nd instance being a day after the 1st, and the 3rd instance being 7 days after that one. Last night I tested the negative cable from the battery for resistance and loss of voltage both to the frame grounding point and engine grounding point without seeing any issue, I removed the frame ground to inspect and it looked fine but I spruced it up a little and put some dielectric grease on it last night. I then looked into the G218 ground issue that is frequently reported in the dash by the driver's A pillar and it was good as well with no insulation interference there. 2 successful starts so far today, but I want to look at the positive leg of the starter to rule it out this weekend. FWIW, I had it in the dealer last July for an airbag recall and they tried to diagnose it there a little. They found zero codes set so they tested both battery cables and found no issue, but after finding an available update for the power control module they performed it and thought it was fixed. It displayed the "Service Theft Deterrent System" message when I started it at the dealership. I went back in, the tech came out and took it back to hook it up, and found codes suggesting there was a short "somewhere" in the truck. The tech was starting his vacation the next week so I was going to take it in the following week when I had to travel suddenly so I cancelled, and long story short the issue went away so I never rescheduled the appointment. Now that it's getting worse since reappearing this spring, I'm on the verge of scheduling that appointment if it continues despite how expensive it sounds.