My 2007 Toyota Camry died on the highway in a downpour airbag light came on and it died 10 seconds later my mechanic couldn't figure it out so I towed it to the dealership they got it started by changing the ignition fuse but I had no working gauges they tried changing the cluster gauge but to no avail. They were in contact with technicians at Toyota Canada and they think I got hit by ⚡. Problem unresolved.
I don't know if I can subscribe to their "lightning strike" theory.
The real clue seems to be this happened in the pouring rain and now it seems that there's a faulty module on the high speed communication network that's dragging down the dash gauges with it.
Your mechanics can hook up a scope using a breakout box at the data port to see if that's happening on the CAN high speed network.
If it is, they could disconnect one control module at a time until the signal clears up to determine which control module is acting up.
They shouldn't ignore the ABS control module. If it were acting up it could do that to the gauges.
It's right up towards the front of the hood and if rain got into its connector and damaged the module it could be flooding the communication network with gibberish voltage signals between data packets.
