car shuts down and restarts while driving

[MtBeaconGrl]

Greetings!

I'm not sure what's going on with my yaris. I have a 2008 sedan no mods except maybe an after market stereo installed last summer.

The issue started about a month ago. The first time it happened I was driving slow (about 40 -45mph) a/c radio and hazards on. The car seemed to stall. Gauges went to zero, power steering gone, radio shut off but then suddenly everything restarted without my doing anything and we kept going. As a precaution we turned everything off and drove with the Windows down but didn't have any other problems... that day.

Intermittently the car would have these symptoms with the difference that if the car wasn't in motion or was moving slowly the car would stall completely and my radio and clock memory gets wiped out.

An additional, maybe unrelated, the backlight on my instrument panel has a very subtle flicker which had been there for at least a year maybe longer.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!