Stalling problem

[mariealline]

I am actually having two problems with this car. I have a 95 Olds Cutlass Ciera 6 cylinder with an automatic transmission. The car is in excellent condition as my son-in-law is an auto mechanic (he gave me the car) and takes extremely good care of his cars. It burns no oil and the oil never goes low, it never overheats, has a new battery, has the fuel filter changed every 6 months, tires are new, etc. It has been to 5 different mechanics and has been put on the testers and no one can find anything wrong with it. However, I have an intermittent problem with it stalling or not starting. I go grocery shopping and when I come back out to the car to start it, it turns over but won't fire. Just cranks and cranks and will not fire. It doesn't do it all the time, just occasionally in warm weather and more often in cold weather below 32 degrees and cooler. In the cold weather it will actually just sputter and stop while driving on the freeway or in town and it has to sit for 20 minutes to an hour before it will start again either way. Has anyone else run into this problem before and if so how did you solve it? Am I having one or two different problems here and is this a problem common to Oldsmobiles or this model of car? I am really desperate to find an answer to this problem. I have had it to the best mechanics in our area and none of them have a clue. They say everything on the car is in extraordinaily good condition for a car of this age and with the mileage it has on it. It has a new starter and all new wires to the battery and the alternator, etc. (Jerry did this before he gave it to me.) I put a brand new battery in it last year which didn't help the problem at all, the ignition and everything possible that the mechanics can think of has been tested. We are all stumped! Would sure appreciate any suggestions to check out.

Thanks, Marie Alline

[GMMerlin]

One of 2 things are happening...you are loosing spark or fuel.
Next thing we need to determine is which one. The main thing is getting your mechanic to get the car to act up for him so he can diagnos the problem.
If you want to jump in and help with the diagnosis here is what you do......
The next time the car won't start, open the hood and remove on of the plug wires from the spark plug, place that end near some metal on the engine and don't hold on to it during the next part.Have someone spin over the engine and see if any spark jumps out of the wire...if so, spark is not the problem and we need to check the fuel system.
There are too many things that can fail intermittantly to guess at the problem, but if you can narrow down the systems the problem is easier to solve.

[travlr]

I had a sorta similiar problem but with an 85 Ford Tempo. The car would stall at really inopportune times. Sometimes it wouldn't even start - like you described. This usually happened during or after it has rained. the problem was that the distributor cap was cracked and allowing moisture to dampen the sparks.

the distributor cap was replaced and all was well(until the next episode)

[ringmaster]

i had a 88 calvier , it did the same thing. only when it was running for a bit. the problem was in the ECM the damm chip inside would get hot, then expand due to the heat, and loose contact where it should be making contact. when it cools it makes contact and runs.

Now i gave my thoughts to your question. Please some 1 help me with my problem!!

[bgchrs2004]

just because it has spark does not mean its at the right time...if the cam sensor is bad and it is sparking on the exhaust stroke then that will cause an intermittnet problem like that....the ecm has to guess when to fire, power or exhaust stroke, if it sometimes chooses exhaust stroke then it will not start....if it chooses power, then the car starts and doesnt feel like it has a problem...you might wanna think about checking the cam sensor

[ringmaster]

do you have a service engin soon light? if you do goto auto zone, they got a hand held computer thay can hook up for you and tell you the problem. if its a ODB II .