Thread: Help urgent!!! No start (Park Avenue)

Well I was driving my old car today (it's my sister's now) and while I was stopped at a stop sign the car decided to stall and die on me, and will not start at all. It will crank and crank but not catch, sometimes it will almost catch but will immediately die afterward. The tach moves when I try and crank it so it's not the cps. I even tried jumping it but it still wouldn't start. Ideas? Where should I start in order to try and find the problem?

A little background info on the car, it's a 1996 Buick Park Avenue with the 3800 Series II in it with about 150K on the clock. There's a lot of stuff wrong with it, first of all it's an electrical nightmare (doors randomly locking, windows getting stuck down, horn randomly going off, lights randomly going on and off etc...), secondly the abs light is on and the airbag light will randomly turn on too. Oh and just recently I was told that the oil pressure light came on due to it being low on oil, I'm not sure how low it was since I wasn't there when my sister put more oil in but the light is off now.

Just because the Tach moves does not rule out the CPS. The CPS is a two part sensor. One signal is for the tach the other signal is for the ignition control module. So if you have no spark, then it is likely the CPS.

X2 on the CPS still possibly being a problem.

Have you checked for spark? Have you checked if you have fuel?

Ok I went back and jumped it again and got it started, but I still don't know why it died and why it wouldn't start the first time I jumped it. It had power and was cranking over fine even before I jumped it the first time. Unfortunately I don't have a fuel pressure gauge so I couldn't check for fuel and it's been a while since I took my automotive courses so I forget how to check for spark. So if this happens again how could I check for spark?

Pull out a plug, contact the threads to a ground, and crank the engine looking for spark. Make sure you're holding it by the spark plug boot.

Or you could have someone else hold it

Smokin2000GTP, an easy way to see if it is fuel would be to spray some TB cleaner into the TB and see if it starts/runs on that, if so you have a fuel problem. Of course this will only work if you have the no start condition.

There have been cases (I know from first hand experience) in which the CPS will fail, the engine will die then after a certain period of time it will start back up (classic symptom of an electronic failure of some kind), Ive seen it where the tach will drop to zero, TCS will turn off but the car keeps running and Ive seen it where you start the car and after a short period of time it will shut down and be difficult if not impossible to restart until a certain period of time passes.

If you dont have spark, thats one of the first things to check as it is in direct control of the signal used by the ICM to trigger the coil packs.

Cool thanks for the tips guys, I'm sure this will happen again so this stuff is good to know.