98 Park Ave randomly stalls, mostly near idle (aka not going very fast)

[vwtobuick]

How are you guy's doing?

So down to business, I have a 98 Park Avenue that decides to randomly stall. It doesn't rough idle, there is no check engine lights, no issue with actual driving. It just every now and then while driving slow speeds it stalls.

Today in this totally cold weather, I left my car outside over night and it starts up okay (mind you with some grawl for waking the beast up), but it stays idling. It seems to only want to stall when either speeding up from say slamming on the breaks (you don't get the change to speed up that is..) or this morning it died while I was coasting to then break for red light.

Thoughts on what to check?

I have noticed recently a slight whistle coming from the engine when I speed up. I don't know what that could be, I saw another posting on vacuum lines about maybe I have something loose?

Just for FYI:
I have changed spark plugs, wires, coil packs before. I haven't had any issue with them in a while now. The gas I put in is just regular Petro Gasoline. Though this time I didn't put in gas line antifreeze come to think of it.

😕

 

[Spriteman]

Sounds like you're on the right track with a possible vacuum leak - check all of your hoses for good connections and also go along the whole length of the hose and look for any cracks. You could even pull the hose and see if anything changes - if it doesn't you may have just located the bad hose.

You could also have a shop do a smoke test to identify any leaks - there are ways to do this at home with different spray cans - you'll have to look it up online and see if you think it may work for you.

The other possibility might be a bad idle air control valve (IAC) - but from your description saying it idles well I would tend to rule that out.

One other possibility may be a bad fuel pump or restricted fuel lines (fuel filter clogged) or something along those lines.

If you haven't changed your fuel filter lately that's a cheap fix and at some point needs to be done anyway. Check the fuel pressure on the fuel rail with a fuel pressure gauge.

Let us know what you find and we can go from there.

 

[vwtobuick]

Inquiry, would you say a vacuum line that has a crack would create whistling. I find this whistle noise is the only thing that is uniquely different with the car.

Some days it is screaming loud (I can hear it while driving, while stereo is going), other days I have to be quiet to hear it.

 

[timoch]

Inquiry, would you say a vacuum line that has a crack would create whistling. I find this whistle noise is the only thing that is uniquely different with the car.

Some days it is screaming loud (I can hear it while driving, while stereo is going), other days I have to be quiet to hear it.

I would think that if you had a vacuum leak that the idle would be rough. I had a similar stalling problem, and it turned out to be one of the connectors on the side terminal battery had worn internally, and after I repaired it the stalling problem went away. Regarding the whining, my PA started whining. and was especially apparent through the radio. When my electrical engineer son listened to it, he said the diodes in the alternator were the cause. When I replaced the alternator, no more whine.

 

[HotZ28]

I have noticed recently a slight whistle coming from the engine when I speed up. I don't know what that could be, I saw another posting on vacuum lines about maybe I have something loose?

Have you checked the PCV valve to be sure it is clean & both O-rings are installed? The thread below will help explain.

http://buickforums.com/forums/threads/39006-Update-on-the-04-Custom?p=217506&

DORMAN Part # 47033

 

[unbridled]

If you have a scanner and it's at all possible, and it stalls in a location where you aren't in danger, pull the codes before you try to restart the engine. (leave the key "on" after the stall.) The last code that caused the stall may still be there, but, if the issue has resolved itself, the code will probably go away once you've started it. (I'm just suggesting this because I had a similar issue because of a loose/jiggly connection and the code would clear as soon as I restarted it. I was lucky enough that mine's a 91 and could just jump the diagnostic terminals)

 

[vwtobuick]

I opened the hood and took a listen, to my surprise the air tube that goes from the filter side of air box to the side of the engine block had come half off. When I was speeding up fast, it would whistle, so I removed the hose clamp, slid back on the air tube and re attached the clamp. The engine no longer whistles at all when driving.

Could this also account for the random shut offs??? The car was happily working with half the tube at the bottom still some what on.

I will be pricing out a PCV valve, any idea of the usual price it goes for? Roughly??
Thank you.