1990 Pontiac Bonneville won't start

Tiny
MATRIXSLP
  • MEMBER
  • 1990 PONTIAC BONNEVILLE
I have had a problem the car won't fire it is getting gas. The car just quit on the highway doing 60 mph. We checked the wiring replaced the oil pressure censer. The code is 12 (nothing wrong) It sometimes will start and run for a few minutes and shut down by it self. It is Like a light switch turned off. It won't get fire to coil and plugs. Help !
Tuesday, May 30th, 2006 AT 11:07 PM

5 Replies

Tiny
BONNIETHEBONNE
  • MEMBER
  • 3 POSTS
Did you ever get this fixed. My car is currently having the same problem, everyone is saying their own things:

"it's the fuel pump"
"it's the sensors"
"it's the catalytic convertor"

i have no idea, I certainly don't feel like replacing everything and then finding out it was a 40 dollar problem after having spent 600.
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Saturday, June 3rd, 2006 AT 1:35 PM
Tiny
DMB143
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  • 1 POST
I also am having a starting problem when the engine is hot. The car is running great and starts cold just fine, however when I turn it off, after I've been driving for 20 minutes or longer, it will not immediately start and requires a cool down period before it will fire off again. Any thoughts as to why this is happening? I appreciate any help you can give. Thank you. It's a 1990 V-6 3.8 liter. 131000 miles

DMB
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Saturday, June 3rd, 2006 AT 9:37 PM
Tiny
BONNIETHEBONNE
  • MEMBER
  • 3 POSTS
As of 3pm today, the mechanic has yet to find out what it is. The car has been in the shop since 8am this morning. At first they thought it was a sensor and chased that, still wouldn't start. So then they tried the ignition module, got mixed results. Now they are replacing the coil packs to see if that will do the trick.

As of now I have no idea. I'm sure i'll have to pay a hefty labor charge since it's taking nearly an entire day just to DIAGNOSE the damn problem.
Mine is a 1990 with around 81,000 miles (it sat for a long time in some elderly man's garage.) So I don't see how this could be occuring.

It's odd that this seems to be a routine problem with this make and model of vehicle yet NO ONE seems to have any answer as to why or what it is.

I'll keep you updated as soon as I wake up from my coma after having seen my repair bill.
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Tuesday, June 6th, 2006 AT 2:04 PM
Tiny
BONNIETHEBONNE
  • MEMBER
  • 3 POSTS
Apparently it's now the relay, and a wire is getting overheated after running the car for about 20 mins.

The wire is expanding and/or popping after it heats up which in turn causes the car to not start.

The mechanic I took it too didn't have the tools/diagnostic capabilities to find out which wire was doing it. So now I have to take it somewhere where they can start from scratch and try to figure it out all over again. And unfortunately in my town there is only one person that works on electrical AND that is GM certified. Just lovely, isn't it?

Hopefully your problem isn't the same as mine. I'm sure this is going to be quite expensive. I'm assuming that since all of my relays go into one junction that is hooked onto my firewall, i'm going to have to replace the computer? Replace ALL the wires? Or maybe i'll get lucky and they can pinpoint what wire it is exactly and just snip it.

If you've gotten yours fixed already let me know how it turns out and the cost. I'll keep you posted.

Damn you bonne.
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Wednesday, June 7th, 2006 AT 7:32 AM
Tiny
SERVICE WRITER
  • MECHANIC
  • 9,123 POSTS
They are probably okay, but check with a scrapyard as they will know. I am pretty sure they are both the axod-ax4s 4 speed transaxles. The later ones came out with overdrive. Should be a 17 bolt pattern pan.

Those older trannys seemed to be a bit of a time bomb if they weren't well maintained, and are not a fun replacement job.
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Saturday, August 18th, 2007 AT 7:40 AM

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