1996 Roadmaster wagon shuts down

10

Asked by GuruBBX5S Dec 26, 2018 at 12:31 AM about the 1996 Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon RWD

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

Bought a 96 roadmaster wagon advertised as runs great. Ive had wagons for over 20 years.   Test drive of him first then me felt a few things.  Did some work got plates and out of three times driving it it has shut down four times.   First time was pulling onto a busy highway in rush hour.  Serious stuff as i was coming on from a sideroad when it shut down with oncoming traffic.     Didnt realize it at first but the three days it shut down on me I had driven the car an hour or two before.  

Now have done videos of it over 11 days and three times each of those days.   I run it for half an hour or an hour shut it off.  Hour half later come back start and run it again and for sure it will fail. Shut off, or idle will surge and rev on its own and stall or just stall then be hard to impossible to restart or restart go for a bit and stall again then maybe impossible to restart. Its all on tape and many failures.   Then I would start it another hour and half later a second time and same thing repeated failures.  I likely have at last 50 failures and it is 100 percent repeatable that it will on this second time it is run.   Had the car been run on test drive, then sat for an hour and half and I drove it again it would have failed but who knows that other than the guy who has owned it for two years.   

Car is dangerous.  

Previous owner had it in to the shop and had some wiring drain short  fixed and then didnt drive it again and put it for sale right after that shop did the repair. In the notes with the car he replaced three starter motors in a short period of time say two months,  clearly he had been repeatedly starting this car or trying to over and over and toasted the starter motors.  One was replaced for free so really that shop got hoodwinked just like me.

Any thoughts appreciated



   

1 Answer

10

thanks editing the videos and posting them would have value. When I leave the hour and half space the heat gauge is back at the bottom again. Its stalled out when the heat gauge is starting to rise again and been impossible to start for hours as well. Im not set up with test gear to check it out but will save your answer. I was told to tap the fuel pump with a rubber mallet and that made zero difference either when it would not start or when it was running and I tried it to see if any effect. To check for spark is it you take a plug out and put the wire back on and hold it near the block or do you use a meter of some sort. If you saw the videos alot more would make sense, the idle taking off like someone is pressing the pedal, stumble then stall or stumble then run a bit more then stall. Odd time it starts again to run a bit long or stall in 20 seconds. Unusable anyway. Last owner refuses to talk, owner before him super nice guy.

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