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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
Advertising:

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

West End Garage Inc ★★★★★

Auto Repair & Service, Used Car Dealers, Automobile Parts & Supplies
Address: 8324 Stagecoach Rd, Little-Rock
Phone: (501) 295-7015

VIP Auto Body & Collision ★★★★★

Automobile Body Repairing & Painting, Used Car Dealers, Automobile Body Shop Equipment & Supplies
Address: 1856 Elvis Presley Blvd, Edmondson
Phone: (901) 406-7747

Ultimate Auto Sales ★★★★★

New Car Dealers, Used Car Dealers, Wholesale Used Car Dealers
Address: 1200 W Main St, Little-Rock-Afb
Phone: (501) 771-2341

Trans Tech ★★★★★

Auto Repair & Service, Transmissions-Other, Auto Transmission
Address: 1155 Pats Ln, Wooster
Phone: (501) 329-2125

Russell`s Truck Accessories ★★★★★

Auto Repair & Service, Automobile Parts & Supplies, Truck Accessories
Address: 3651 Stadium Blvd, Jonesboro
Phone: (870) 910-6593

Performance Cars & Trucks ★★★★★

New Car Dealers, Used Car Dealers, Wholesale Used Car Dealers
Address: 3508 S Walton Blvd # A, Hiwasse
Phone: (479) 271-6779

Auto blog

Malaise Era Junkyard Gem: 1979 Buick Electra Limited

Wed, Jun 22 2016

In the fall of 1973, the Arab members of OPEC shut off the oil taps, and Detroit got busy making many of their full-sized land yachts a lot smaller. By model year 1977, the downsized fifth-generation Buick Electra was ready to go ... just in time for the 1979 Iranian Revolution to squeeze the supply of the black stuff even further. You won't see many of the 1977-85 Electras these days, but I spotted this faded but solid '79 Limited sedan in a Denver self-service yard last week. General Motors must have bought up the entire world's supply of blue velour around this time, because you'll see this stuff in just about every car they made for the following decade or so. By this time, GM was doing a lot of mixing-and-matching with engines from its various divisions, which meant you could buy an Oldsmobile 88 with a Chevrolet 350 V8 engine, a Chevrolet Monza with a Buick 231 V6 engine, or— as in this case— a Buick Electra with an Oldsmobile 350 V8 engine. Do you want to know how many horses this engine delivered to this 3,631-pound car? 155 horsepower out of 5.7 liters of engine displacement. Times were tough during the Malaise Era. Related Video: Featured Gallery Junked 1979 Buick LeSabre in Colorado Junkyard View 20 Photos Buick Automotive History Luxury Classics Sedan malaise era

Consumer Reports no longer recommends Honda Civic

Mon, Oct 24 2016

Consumer Reports annual Car Reliability Survey is out, and yes, there are some big surprises. First and foremost? The venerable publication no longer recommends the Honda Civic. In fact, aside from the walking-dead CR-Z and limited-release Clarity fuel-cell car, the Civic is the only Honda to miss out on CR's prestigious nod. At the opposite end there's a surprise as well – Toyota and Lexus remain the most reliable brands on the market, but Buick cracked the top three. That's up from seventh last year, and the first time for an American brand to stand on the Consumer Reports podium. Mazda's entire lineup earned Recommended checks as well. Consumer Reports dinged the Civic for its "infuriating" touch-screen radio, lack of driver lumbar adjustability, the limited selection of cars on dealer lots fitted with Honda's popular Sensing system, and the company's decision to offer LaneWatch instead of a full-tilt blind-spot monitoring system. Its score? A lowly 58. The Civic isn't the only surprise drop from CR's Recommended ranks. The Audi A3, Ford F-150, Subaru WRX/STI, and Volkswagen Jetta, GTI, and Passat all lost the Consumer Reports' checkmark. On the flipside, a number of popular vehicles graduated to the Recommended ranks, including the BMW X5, Chevrolet Camaro, Corvette, and Cruze, Hyundai Santa Fe, Porsche Macan, and Tesla Model S. Perhaps the biggest surprise is the hilariously recall-prone Ford Escape getting a Recommended check – considering the popularity of Ford's small crossover, this is likely a coup for the brand, as it puts the Escape on a level playing field with the Recommended Toyota RAV4, Honda CR-V, and Nissan Rogue. While Ford is probably happy to see CR promote the Escape, the list wasn't as kind for every brand. For example, of the entire Fiat Chrysler Automobiles catalog, the ancient Chrysler 300 was the only car to score a check – there wasn't a single Dodge, Fiat, Jeep, Maserati, or Ram on the list. That hurts. FCA isn't alone at the low end, either. GMC, Jaguar Land Rover, Mini, and Mitsubishi don't have a vehicle on CR's list between them, while brands like Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Nissan, Lincoln, Infiniti, and Cadillac only have a few models each. You can check out Consumer Reports entire reliability roundup, even without a subscription, here.

Next Buick Regal coming in 2017, could be imported from Germany

Sun, 03 Aug 2014

The Buick Regal is based on the Opel/Vauxhall Insignia, a pair of sedans from General Motors' European and British outfits. In fact, over 46,000 Regals from model years 2010 and 2011 were screwed together on the same lines as the Insignia twins, before GM's Oshawa, Ontario factory took over production fully. Considering this closeness, rumors that claim the next-generation Regal - due for 2017 - could move back to Europe aren't terribly surprising. Here's why, according to Automotive News.
Oshawa is home to three other vehicles, aside from the Regal - the Chevrolet Camaro, Impala rental queen and the Cadillac XTS. We already know next-gen Camaro production is headed to Lansing, MI, and that the fleet-only Impala will (finally!) die in 2016. As for the XTS, as AN explains it, sales are so slow that GM will either kill it or just shuffle its production volume elsewhere.
Taken along with the fact that Unifor, the Canadian labor union repping workers at the Oshawa factory, claim GM hasn't made any guarantees about future production at the nearly 60-year-old factory, it seems fairly clear that the Regal's current factory is going to be put out to pasture.