1998 Buick Park Avenue Base Sedan 4-door 3.8l With No Functioning Key on 2040-cars
Little Rock, Arkansas, United States
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. |
Buick Park Avenue for Sale
1999 buick park avenue base sedan 4-door 3.8l(US $2,495.00)
2003 buick park avenue ultra sedan 4-door 3.8l
2002 buick park avenue 62k 1 ownr diamond edition rag roof lthr onstr cd garaged(US $5,700.00)
2003 buick
1999 buick park avenue ultra
One owner supercahrged sunroof leather heated seats low miles very clean(US $16,000.00)
Auto Services in Arkansas
Roberts Brothers Tire Service ★★★★★
Precision Automotive ★★★★★
Money Tree ★★★★★
Meineke Car Care Center ★★★★★
Marks Auto Repair ★★★★★
Hodges Wrecker Service ★★★★★
Auto blog
Buick dusting off Grand National, GNX and T-Type nameplates
Mon, 26 Nov 2012Inside Line reports Buick is planning to bring back some of the more storied names from the company's past, including the Grand National, GNX and the T-Type. Those cars rose to prominence in the 1970s and '80s to become performance legends of their day.
The new models will reportedly make use of the rear-wheel drive platform that currently underpins the Cadillac ATS and all would arrive as sedans - according to an unnamed source familiar with the initiative. Odds are the T-Type and the Grand National would share a driveline, with honest money being on a new twin-turbocharged 3.6-liter V6 as the engine of choice. Word has it the mill will be good for anywhere from 350 to 400 horsepower.
That leaves only the GNX. Inside Line seems to think that machine could get down the road with some help from the all-new GM LT1 small-block V8. The engineers behind the ATS platform have already told us the engine bay is large enough for to accommodate the big eight pot, and since GM is most certainly working on an ATS-V, a slightly less powerful, less luxurious Buick iteration makes some kind of sense. We can't wait to see these things in the light of day.
It looks like Buick is working on a new Regal GS
Mon, Jun 5 2017When Buick revealed its Regal-badged version of the Opel Insignia/Holden Commodore sedan and wagon, it left out one significant model, the GS. The high-performance Regal was missing in action, but these new spy photos seem to indicate one is coming soon. It looks like it will be pretty subtle on the outside. Upon close examination, we can see that each side of the front bumper features a much larger grille than the normal Regal Sportback and TourX. The thick upper borders on the grilles also look like good places for some LED accent or fog lights. These larger grilles appear to be the only significant difference to the front, though. On the sides, there are slightly deeper side skirts than those on a standard Sportback, and the rear bumper looks to be lifted from the TourX, but without the wagon's aluminum cladding. One other indication that this is a high-performance Regal is the car's front braking equipment. We can make out a Cadillac logo on the front brake calipers, which shows that this isn't running standard Regal stoppers. As for what's under the hood, it's tough to say, but we don't think it will use a turbocharged four-cylinder as the previous generation did. Instead, we think it may be using a V6. That's a hard maybe. The base Regal's turbo four makes as much power as the old GS, and although Buick could crank up the boost for more power, it could also make use of the V6 it will offer overseas. In the mechanically identical Commodore, a 308-horsepower V6 will be available along with a 9-speed automatic and the same type of all-wheel-drive system as the Ford Focus RS. This option would make the upcoming GS more powerful than the old one, and the new standard model, plus offer all-wheel drive. We would like to see even more power than 308, since the top-dog previous-generation Insignia OPC had a 325-horsepower V6. Related Video: Featured Gallery Buick Regal GS Spy Shots View 15 Photos Image Credit: Brian Williams Spy Photos Buick Hatchback Luxury Performance Sedan buick regal gs
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