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
Tint Pro & Accessories ★★★★★
Tim`s Auto Body ★★★★★
Swain`s Service Center ★★★★★
Seeburg Muffler & Brake ★★★★★
Seeburg Muffler & Brake ★★★★★
River City Motors II ★★★★★
Auto blog
Junkyard Gem: 1973 Buick LeSabre Custom Hardtop Sedan
Sat, Oct 26 2019The steps on Alfred Sloan's "Ladder of Success," in which you'd start your career by buying a Chevrolet and then move up through the GM marques as your wealth increased, stayed rigidly fixed from the 1930s into the late 1960s. By the early 1970s, though, "prestige creep" among The General's divisions had set in, with lower-zoot marques leapfrogging their betters with ballooning price tags and snob appeal; a fully-loaded Chevy Caprice could cost more than an Olds 98, a Pontiac Bonneville could out-snoot a Buick LeSabre, and the LeSabre itself came to threaten mighty Cadillac at the top of the GM pyramid. Here's a fully depreciated '73 LeSabre Custom Hardtop Sedan, once the picture of Malaise Era opulence but now brought down to earth in a San Jose self-service car graveyard. The high-rollingest of all LeSabres in 1973 was the Custom (though shoppers for full-sized 1973 Buicks really wishing to rub the noses of their lessers in their success could opt for the even pricier Centurion or Electra 225), and that's what I found among the Achievas and Cateras of this yard's GM section. Wasps now nest in the rust holes caused by rainwater seeping beneath the padded vinyl roof, but this car once told the world, "I've made it!" It went without saying that your big, comfy Detroit luxury sedan had a big, comfy front bench seat; let those frivolous rakehells in their Rivieras have their bucket seats. Believe it or not, a three-on-the-tree column-shift manual transmission was still standard equipment on the lower-level Buick Century in 1973, but all LeSabre buyers enjoyed two-pedal luxury that year. Some junkyard shopper grabbed the massive 455-cubic-inch (7.5-liter) V8 — rated at 225 horsepower, due to Nixon's stricter emissions standards and the switch from gross to net horsepower ratings — before I got here. I'm guessing this car got driven into the ground by the early 2000s (there's a 2001 calendar inside) and then spent the next couple of decades bleaching in the harsh South Bay sun before arriving here. So good, shoppers bought them sight unseen!
GM recalls 2022 Cadillac XT5, XT6 and GMC Acadia for suspension issue
Mon, Jun 27 2022General Motors is recalling a relatively small number of 2022 Cadillac and GMC crossovers to address the potential for missing or loose rear suspension hardware that is being blamed on a lapse in quality control at the company's Spring Hill facility. The campaign covers 223 examples of the Cadillac XT5, 159 examples of the Cadillac XT6 and 354 examples of the GMC Acadia. "General Motors has decided that a defect, which relates to motor vehicle safety, exists in certain 2022 model year Cadillac XT5, XT6, and GMC Acadia vehicles," GM said in its defect report. "A fastener in the left-rear suspension toe link in some of these vehicles may not have been fully tightened during suspension assembly. After an assembly process was moved to a new area, error proofing equipment was not initially set up properly, which allowed a window where the operator might miss tightening certain fasteners without the failure being flagged." The issue was discovered by a quality engineer at the Spring Hill facility in March of this year, at which point GM conducted an audit to determine which and how many vehicles may have left the factory with improperly torqued or missing fasteners, narrowing down the recall population to the above 736 vehicles. No incidents associated with the defect have been reported in customer vehicles. Related video: Recalls Buick Cadillac GM Ownership Safety
Woodward Dream Cruise Photo Gallery | Classics and American muscle
Sun, Aug 21 2022The 2022 running of the Woodward Dream Cruise just went down, and we were there from morning to evening drinking in the sweet sights and pre-emissions exhaust fumes. Yes, it’s a little smelly on Woodward Ave. this time of year. Just like always, the Dream Cruise invites all comers to cruise their machines on Woodward from Ferndale, MI to Pontiac, MI. Everybody is invited, but the original intent of the Dream Cruise was to highlight classic American muscle cars. YouÂ’ll see plenty of those in our mega gallery above, but weÂ’ve sprinkled it with a bunch of other vehicle types, such as modern muscle and other intriguing American vehicles. Similar to years past, though, sometimes the classics arenÂ’t the most entertaining thing to look at on Woodward. ThatÂ’s why weÂ’ll have other mega galleries coming soon, highlighting the weird cars and (great) dogs of the Cruise, all the imports and exotics you can imagine and a special one for all the trucks of Woodward — perhaps even more so than in years past, the truck population on Dream Cruise day was quite high. Click through above to see all the classics you wouldÂ’ve seen had you been roadside on the day of the cruise. And if you missed this yearÂ’s event, make sure you check out what happens next year. You wonÂ’t be alone, as itÂ’s estimated that over 1 million people attend the Dream Cruise to either watch from the side of the road or to sit in the most glorious traffic jam in the world. Related video Featured Gallery 2022 Woodward Dream Cruise classics and American muscle View 160 Photos Design/Style Buick Cadillac Chevrolet Chrysler Dodge Ford GM GMC Hummer Jeep Pontiac RAM Classics Woodward Dream Cruise





