the other day, I was driving my '96 SSEi, and everytime I hit the brakes, the temp, oil, fuel and boost gage would go dead for a second, then come right back. If I turned on the AC, the same thing happened. Almost like there wasn't enough battery power to run everything. I was hesitant to shut it off, because I thought maybe the battery was bad, or the alternator. When I got to work, I shut it off. I was going to try to start it again, assuming it would be dead, but to my surprise, she fired right up, and never gave that problem again. The battery connections were all good, and it hasn't given me any problems since. That was last week. Any ideas what causes this? It seemed like such a freak incident, because it never did it again.

Yeah, that is a strange phenonema, or anamoly, whatever. I'd be looking out for that thing to possibly rear it'* ugly head again.

I had the same problem with mine. There are some brands of batteries that had a problem with the connections inside the battery getting screwed up. I'm unsure of the brands.

I replaced mine with an Optima red top and haven't had the problem since

That makes sense, it seemed totally like a lack of power issue. the brake lights activated it, and turning the AC on made it noticeably worse. But then it started right up, and never did it again. I'm thinking battery too.