Buick died

I delivered an Oliver pto potato digger today on a trailer behind my 2003 Buick Park Ave Ultra with 3800 motor. To keep it tractor related, I hooked up the digger to a Ferguson TO-20 and it runs nice.
On my return trip the Buick died. The motor just stopped running, the instrument panel still had electricity and the battery gauge registered 11.4 volts. There was NO CODE thrown. I coasted to a stop on the highway shoulder, let it cool down a bit and tried restarting it. It would turn over but just wouldn't catch. I got a tow truck and it is now home in the driveway. Since no code was thrown I'm wondering if it might be a timing belt/chain problem. Any ideas?

I had a 1999 Buick LeSabre with 3800 V6, drove it about 250,000 miles only changed fluids and air filter and never change plugs.
Friend had the 2002 Park Avenue with same motor but newer generation and he had coolant leak because of plastic intake tubes and he had engine no start with the cramkcase position sensor failure.
Almost bullet proof engine.

See link below for possible causes:
GM 3800 V6 problems

Unlikely, never seen a chain go on a Series
II 3800. Unplug the Mass Air Flow sensor
and see if it starts. If it starts, the
MAF is bad. They can cause stalls,
sometimes they fail hot and drop to near 0
airflow, which the computer sees as no fuel
needed. I bet it will restart in the
morning, you may have to let it run to warm
up and stall again. Crank sensors and
Ignition modules are the other common hot
fail items, but not as common as the MAF. If the MAF turns out to be the problem, bite the bullet and buy a new one. The reman ones you'll pull your hair out going through them until you find one that works. I only install new at my shop.

Your 99 had the plastic tubes and intake, too, you just lucked out. Series II started in 1994, first OBD II compliant GM engine. The Series II changed very little until its phase out in '08. Only improvements in that time was aluminum oil pan and aluminum upper plenum.

One other thing.. fuel pump. I had two of
them driving down the road just go phhhhit.
Also pump relay in fuse box on a VW.

Geez. The ways things have been going lately, I thought you were posting the obituary of Buick-Deere, the frequent poster here from Canada.
Glad to hear it was only a car that died!

That was my thought too!

Paul

11.4 volts when stopped might be the issue. Electronics are funny that way. Bad battery? Charge it and see if it goes. Jim

I guess I was lucky but I also had that red GM coolant changed every 5 years.
A rear brake line blew out when it was -20F in the winter of 2014 and local garage wanted $2,000 to replace all the brake lines and I was too old to crawl under and do it myself.
Bought a new 2014 Camry XLE in March 2014, a very nice car but nothing rides like that Buick with the air ride shocks and the GM climate control that would keep the cabin temperature more accurately than the Camry. Also with the Camry if it is freezing rain it struggles to keep the windshield clear but that maybe because it is only a 4 cyl.
The Camry gives much better city MPG but highway is not that much more than Buick at 36 to 38 MPG(Imperial) vs Camry 38 to 42 MPG.

I've got an oldsmobile with the 3800 motor and it did the same thing. The timing chain was the culprit on mine. Do a compression test on it and see what happens. Mine is older and it had plastic tips on the timing gear which caused it to fail prematurely.

If you do think it jumped time, if you have an inspection camera you might take a look at the pistons. Mine hit the valves on all the cylinders and bent them so I ended up having a valve job done too. I didn't find this out until I fixed the timing chain and then had to take the engine back apart to get the heads off.

I had a '92 Olds 88 that would stop dead, and restart after 15 minutes or so. It drove me nuts.

I finally figured out it would do it when there was high temperature under the hood, from idling a long time, or restarting after it sat for a few minutes when warmed all the way up.

This was in the winter, and once when it did it, I popped the hood, jumped out, grabbed a handful of snow, and held the snow under the ignition module. It started right up. So, the culprit was the ignition module.

This might be moot; I think they changed things by '99. But the 3.8 is a bullet proof engine. I ran several of them to well over 200k, and they still ran like when they left the factory.

Pull the intake off a and squirt carb cleaner in and try to start if it does, check the injectors Ohm value. If there is two bad injectors it will shut that motor off and not start. Had a cutlass do it to me.
11.2 volts could also be the problem.It does not have to miss to do it either.

Is there a sensor and a notched ring bolted to the harmonic balancer ?

At 11.4 Volts the battery in a modern vehicle with a 'puter and electronic fuel injection is DEAD.

Will it start if you boost it?

Another vote here for the low voltage being the issue. When I read the post that was my first thought.

(quoted from post at 20:46:54 08/11/19) Unlikely, never seen a chain go on a Series
II 3800. Unplug the Mass Air Flow sensor
and see if it starts. If it starts, the
MAF is bad. They can cause stalls,
sometimes they fail hot and drop to near 0
airflow, which the computer sees as no fuel
needed. I bet it will restart in the
morning, you may have to let it run to warm
up and stall again. Crank sensors and
Ignition modules are the other common hot
fail items, but not as common as the MAF. If the MAF turns out to be the problem, bite the bullet and buy a new one. The reman ones you'll pull your hair out going through them until you find one that works. I only install new at my shop.

Click to expand...

The car did start today but only ran for about 20 seconds and then shut off. I unhooked the MAF sensor and the car restarted and idled real nice for several minutes , then I shut it off. So it seems a new MAF sensor is needed.
The battery is ok at 12.6 volts with the car off and when running the gauge registers 13.3 volts. Is it possible that the faulty MAF sensor could mess with the computer that then messes with the gauges to give that 11.4 v reading yesterday? A couple of weeks ago I had driven about 10 miles and suddenly the gauges went into flicker mode, the battery registered 11.8v and the motor began chugging. I pulled off the road and the gauges stopped flickering but the battery voltage kept changing between 11.8 and 12.4 volts. The drivers power seat no longer worked but the passenger seat worked fine. I continued to my destination, shut the car off, cleaned the battery terminals, fiddled with the wiring under the drivers seat and after sitting for 2 hours the car was working fine, no flickering gauges, normal battery gauge at 13.3 v and driver power seat back in operation. Can all this electrical stuff be related to a failing MAF sensor?

No. It indicates a failing ground, or power connection. There are fuse access boxes. they can be taken apart to see if some
component or contact is getting charred. I think it is not the MAF sensor. Jim

Clean the connections between the two cables that connect to the +VE battery post. Dirty connections between these two cables will cause this problem.

just went through that with a 2003 la sabre buick with the 3800.

after long cool down it would start and run till it got to 156 degrees via the info center and cut off like someone shot it. Could repeat. Took long cool down to ran again. Spraying water on various modules did not produce any changes.

no codes... so.. replace the crank shaft sensor...book said that was probably the first culprit. Had to order the special bolts for pulling the pulley/damper/harmonic balancer off other wise easy.. But then.... found out it lost its programed timing points.... had to pull the battery for 5 minutes,,to get the ecu to go into relearn mode as I did not have the $2000 tester to tell it to do that after the css was replaced. It relearned its timing, as you ran it at idle for a few seconds and then wide open for 3 seconds... and then turned it off to force a rewire of the ecu... then... itran smooth, and at 156 degrees it cut off again. replace the spark module under the coil packs next. as that was next on the list in the trouble shooting book.. fired it up and but it died at 156 again,, [b:bcb0e97671]but this time it threw a code [/b:bcb0e97671]saying the maf sensor was bad!!!!! replace the maf sensor and problem is gone... code cleared and everyone one is happy.

So... I suspect there were several problems.. but IF.... the maf sensor is unplugged, its supposed to run on a default mapping... so I did not try that first off...Probably should have??? If so, might have proved the maf sensor sooner?? but then got no code till the first two modules were replaced?? Your guess is as good as mine. But still got it running for less that a shop would have charged me. Around $230 in parts. And now I have the special bolts for the gm harmonic balancer. Grandma is happy again.

Use this if it helps... [i:bcb0e97671][u:bcb0e97671][/u:bcb0e97671][/i:bcb0e97671]