Was driving on the highway then smelled a burning plastic like smell then 5 seconds later my whole engine shuts off while my foot was on the pedal.Pulled over to shoulder and tried restarting but the engine would just rotate as if it was out of gas.A friend tells me he thinks it has something to do with my alarm as its stopping the engine from turning on.Anyone have any suggestions on how I can restart my rodeo again?How can I disable the alarm or by pass it?Where do I exactly find it>Is tehre a fuse for it?Could this be something other then the alarm getting in the way?Thanks.

1998 isuzu rodeo.

Burning plastic smell....does not lean towards the alarm idea...at least not in my mind.

Thoroughly check inside the engine bay for anything unusual first; i.e worn out, frozen serpentine belt, alternator, fried wires of any obvious visual appearance. Could be any number of things, but check out your belts and your alternator first.

When my last alt went bad, it wreaked horribly.

Did you check the timing belt?

I doubt it's the alarm especially if it's factory.

Check out the recalls for that year. There is one that is exactly for that symptom as it turns out a connection is bad on a sensor and the computer gets an erroneous high engine speed signal and shuts off the fuel.

Did you check the timing belt?

I doubt it's the alarm especially if it's factory.

I think the belt is ok as the belt rotates when trying to start the engine.Again my friend is thinking it could be a wire that burned related to the anti-theft system and he thinks thats why the car wont start.So Im trying to think if thats what it truely is,then how can i by-pass the anti-theft and try turning on the rodeo?

My '99 Rodeo use to do the exact same thing. It would shut-off while driving and would not start and act like it was out of gas. Usually if it sat for 10 min or so it would start again and was fine. I wish I could remember what the problem was, but it hasn't happened in over 6 years. I'm thinking maybe it was an EGR problem. I'll look through my service history when I get the chance, but I don't remember it being an alarm issue. If it was the car would not do anything while you turned the key.