Park Avenue stalls

[theophilus]

I was encouraged to post this question after seeing the thread on esp's stalling Buick.

My Mother-in-Law's 1995 Park Avenue (a really nice car) has been stalling recently. We've swapped cars, and eventually (after several weeks!), it misbehaved for me, too. Symptoms are somewhat different than most I've seen or experienced. The stalls can occur during steady-state driving at virtually any speed. There is no bucking, coughing, or stumbling. One moment it's running, then it's not. It ALWAYS restarts immediately (i.e. when I bump it into neutral and crank the car). Occasionally, it will (quietly) lose power, then restart by itself (i.e. without cranking the engine - apparently the TCC remains locked, keeping the engine turning). No check engine light. Tach tends to drop to ~0 when this event occurs (even when the restart without cranking happens - when presumably, the engine is being driven by the vehicle). It is very intermittant - it may not do it at all for a week or more. Then it may happen 4 or 5 times in one 15 minute drive.

Do I have a PCM going through resets or ??? Doesn't seem to be related to temperature or load and, as I said, there is no drama during the stall - it just quietly stops running.

Help?

[Reatta Man]

Theo,

Replace the Crank Angle Sensor. It is failing intermittenly. When it fails, the computer reads it as no signal, which is almost like turning the key off. There is no computer code or check engine light because it reads it as if the engine is not running. The CAS is about a $35-50 part, depending on where you buy it. It is mounted near the harmonic balancer on the front of the engine.

Once it is replace, the car will run the same, it just won't stall and die.

Le me know how it turns out.

Joe

[JohnD1956]

I had a similar situation with my 95 Riviera. It turned out to be the main computer. It took a month to figure this out because the computer did not store any codes. It became a bigger problem as the weather turned colder, but that may not really have anything to do with it. It just occurred prior to winter.