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1998 Buick Park Avenue Base Sedan 4-door 3.8l With No Functioning Key on 2040-cars

Year:1998 Mileage:103000
Location:

Little Rock, Arkansas, United States

Little Rock, Arkansas, United States
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It won’t start, it smells bad and it’s ugly. Now for the bad parts-

This is a two owner vehicle with about 103,000 miles on it. When we bought it with about 84000 miles on it last year (previous owner was an older lady), it had a known electrical glitch that eventually turned into a known electrical Festival of Glitches. Which is why it won’t start. It has a newish starter, alternator and battery. We have played “find the hidden current draw” many times. Eventually we pulled fuses and relays at random (including the radio, which was a POS anyway) until the worst of the glitches (the fact that the battery would drain in about a day) was vanquished. Or at least moderated. Meanwhile, my son showed the good sense to move far away, and during that time the key was lost. A smooth $135 later, we have a key that unlocks the doors (or the ones that actually open from the outside; two at this time), causes the dash to light up and that turns in the ignition. Unfortunately, it doesn’t actually start the car. The locksmith’s view is that there must be an electrical glitch that is preventing the key from programming. Uh, yeah. He suggested that only the dealer could help, although the overarching tone was “sucks to be you, man.”

We did take it to a local mechanic, who made a couple of stout runs at it. He eventually asked us to stop bringing it in, as it made him sad.

So, the key does everything but start the car. When turned to “on,” there is an ominous electro-mechanical noise from the right rear wheel well, which I presume to be related to the self-leveling suspension, if it has a self-leveling suspension. I’m going with that because it’s less worrisome than many other possible causes of the noise, and ascertaining more info about the noise would necessitate opening the trunk. Which is full of water. We don’t know why.

Which probably has nothing to do with the fact that the driver’s mirror fell off, or that the “twilight sentinel” auto headlight switch sometimes turns the headlights on in the middle of the night, when the car is turned off. Or that the driver’s power window does not work. Or any of the other electrical devices that don’t work. Which would be most of them.

Amazingly, both power seats work, although the switches are hanging on by their wires. This seems to be a GM design characteristic; I noticed it a lot when I was looking for replacement door handles (two of which don’t work, as has been noted) at the junkyard.

There are lots of these things at the junkyard. There’s probably a Buick Park Avenue specific junkyard out there.

When it did run, it actually ran okay. The motor was smooth and didn’t leak anything and the transmission shifted gears appropriately. Which is meaningless since it won’t start, so anybody bidding on it should assume that not only will it not start, but if attempts are made to start it, it will explode. Possibly blowing away the atmosphere and ending life as we know it.

Let’s manage expectations.

It doesn’t look nearly as good as the pictures indicate (we’re not even sure how those dents on the right rear door and rear fender got there, but we suspect wayward snow-sledders were involved), and the pictures cannot convey the overall grossness of the interior. Really, wear a hazmat suit the first time you get into it. It’s not all torn up, but at some point the teenage filth treatment overcame any desire we had to make it look reputable inside. We cave (wet, muddy Arkansas caves), but one of us didn’t always change into clean clothes afterwards. The teenage one who owns the Buick, in fact.

Still, the most the junkyard will offer is $250 (if they come get it). And that’s only because of the newish alternator, starter and battery. And the fact that the tires are all the same brand and have lots of tread. It’s a sad time when the state of the tires is a major determiner as to a car’s value. Before he moved and lost the key, he thought he had it sold on Craigslist for $1000, but that person never returned. That said, for somebody with the time, tools and knowledge to fool around with it (not to mention access to a trailer), it could be made into cheap transportation. Cheap, ugly and possibly unreliable transportation, but transportation. Or not. Really, it could just explode.

Auto Services in Arkansas

United Motor Service ★★★★★

Auto Repair & Service, Auto Engine Rebuilding, Engine Rebuilding & Exchange
Address: 500 W Broadway St, Morrilton
Phone: (501) 354-4340

Tim Parker Chrysler Dodge Jeep ★★★★★

Auto Repair & Service, New Car Dealers, Automobile Body Repairing & Painting
Address: 4722 Central Ave, Hot-Springs
Phone: (888) 977-7806

Star Windshield ★★★★★

Auto Repair & Service, Automobile Parts & Supplies, Windshield Repair
Address: 225 Buena Vista Rd, Mountain-Pine
Phone: (501) 525-1504

Schroder Tire Co ★★★★★

Auto Repair & Service, Tire Dealers, Wheels-Aligning & Balancing
Address: 5094 Highway 62 E, Flippin
Phone: (870) 453-5555

Safelite AutoGlass - Little Rock ★★★★★

Auto Repair & Service, Windshield Repair, Automobile Accessories
Address: 1306 S University Ave, Little-Rock
Phone: (501) 376-0711

S S Undercar ★★★★★

Auto Repair & Service
Address: 2101 S Main St # B, Stuttgart
Phone: (870) 673-3531

Auto blog

Buick Encore blitzes first-year sales predictions

Sat, 01 Mar 2014

With its first full year of sales in the bag, it's safe to say that Buick has a hit on its hands with the Encore. US buyers have snatched up 31,046 of the small, premium crossovers since the Encore went on sale in January of 2013, while 97,311 were sold globally (not counting its counterparts from Opel and Vauxhall).
While we liked the Encore when we first drove it, we'll admit, we weren't sure how the tiny CUV would do. In fact, the first thing Executive Editor Chris Paukert wrote about the Encore was, "We admit it. We have no earthly idea how this whole thing is going to shake out." But it's done well, and has been subject to heavy demand over the past year, blowing away the estimates of analysts, who, according to an August story from Automotive News, projected no more than 18,500 units would be sold in 2013.
"Right out of the gate, demand for the Encore was high," Tony DiSalle, vice president of Buick marketing said in a statement. "It accounted for most of the segment's growth last year and that's because it offers the right safety, technology and features in the right-sized vehicle for many customers."

GM seeks to exempt Buick Envision from U.S. auto tariffs

Fri, Aug 3 2018

General Motors is seeking an exemption to a 25 percent U.S. tariff on its Chinese-made Buick Envision sport utility, the automaker said on Thursday, in a move to prevent the key model in the brand's U.S. lineup from becoming a victim of the U.S.-China trade war. The midsize SUV, priced starting at about $35,000, has become a target for critics of Chinese-made goods, including leaders of the United Auto Workers union and members in key political swing states such as Michigan and Ohio. The Envision, assembled only in China, last year accounted for about 19 percent of Buick brand sales in the United States. GM said in a statement that it filed the request on July 30 with the U.S. Trade Representative. An official notice was posted on Thursday on the regulations.gov website, which is tracking requests for exclusions from the so-called Section 301 tariff on certain imported goods from China. GM, the largest U.S. automaker, argued in its request that Envision sales in China and the United States would generate funds "to invest in our U.S. manufacturing facilities and to develop the next generation of automotive technology in the United States." GM said the "vast majority" of Envisions, about 200,000 a year, are sold in China. About 41,000 were sold last year in the United States. Because of the lower U.S. sales volume, "assembly in our home market is not an option" for the Envision, which competes with such midsize crossover vehicles as the Jeep Grand Cherokee and the Cadillac XT5. GM has taken other steps to soften the blow of tariffs, which hit just as the automaker had lowered the price of the Envision to make it more competitive. Ahead of the July 6 start for higher import tariffs, GM shipped in a six-month supply of Envisions at the much lower 2.5 percent tariff rate. Envision sales from April through June plunged to just 7,000 vehicles, while inventories climbed to more than 13,000 vehicles at the end of June. At the current sales rate, the Envision supply should be enough to keep many dealers stocked through the end of the year. GM had lowered prices by as much as $2,500 on the 2019 models, which it started shipping in late April. That means Buick's 2,000 U.S. dealers should have lower-priced Envisions to sell well into the fall. "The previous price point was too high" on the 2018 Envision, said Casey Clark, sales manager at Serra Buick GMC Cadillac in Washington, Michigan, in an interview.

Junkyard Gem: 1988 Buick LeSabre Custom Sedan

Sun, Aug 14 2022

The General's Buick Division began selling LeSabres for the 1959 model year, when it greeted the world with a cat-eyed face and razor-sharp tailfins, and the LeSabre rolled on the full-sized, rear-wheel-drive B Platform (best-known for underpinning the Chevrolet Impala and Caprice) all the way through 1985. For 1986, the LeSabre went to the front-wheel-drive H Platform, shedding a few hundred pounds and a half-foot of wheelbase, yet gaining interior room in the process. After that, every LeSabre ever made had a V6 engine driving the front wheels, all the way to the end in 2005. Here's one of those early H-Body LeSabres, found in a Denver-area self-service yard in incredibly clean condition. Some Buicks and Oldsmobiles of the mid-to-late 1980s (the ones on brand-new platforms) had six-digit odometers, which is the reason I was able to see that a discarded '86 Olds Calais with crazy customizing touches had better than 360,000 miles on the clock. This car just barely squeezed past 100,000 miles … and that's a higher number than I expected to see after glancing at the body and interior. Just look at that upholstery! There are no rips, and the only stains appear to have occurred after arrival in the junkyard ecosystem. I think we're looking at a one-owner car that was given meticulous care and was driven only to (a nearby) church on Sundays. Though the HRC sticker and Autobot badge seem out of place on an original-owner Buick that rolled out of the showroom 34 years ago. Perhaps the car was handed down from Owner #1 to a grandchild. This is the most high-zoot radio Buick would sell you in a 1988 LeSabre, complete with Dolby, auto-reverse cassette player, and scan/seek modes on the radio. The price tag on this? 282 bucks, or about 720 inflation-shrunk frogskins today; not cheap, but necessary to do justice to the hit songs of the day. If you wanted a factory CD player in a new LeSabre, you had to wait another year or two. Pollard Brothers Motors is still around, on the other side of the Continental Divide from the Denver region. Power came from an EFI-equipped Buick 3.8-liter V6, rated at 150 horsepower. The only transmission available was a four-speed automatic. Except for some dents that almost certainly happened at the junkyard, the paint and body look gorgeous. Problem is, H-Body LeSabres don't have an enthusiast following, and car shoppers looking for daily drivers tend to shy away from sedans this old.