1989 Buick LeSabre Custom from North America - Comments

-Fuel Pump (3 times)

-Mass Air Flow Sensor (expensive bugger)

-Main engine control computer (s) I belive there are two on the Buicks of that year, and at least one of them was problematic for certain!

-Transmission, changed the fluid to find many many metal flakes, much more that is OK. Transmission would slip out of gear when cold, which is most of the time in Alaska.

I don't know what happened! My folks had an '88 LeSabre when I was a kid and that thing is still running like a champ! This one needed an excorcist more than a mechanic. I considered pouring holy water into the radiator!

It was a decent car, for the first week, then it just went down from there. It had great power when it ran correctly. It turned into a nightmare really quick.

It really became annoying when a professional mechanic started talking about just changing out parts until it worked right! What a gyp!

I ended up donating it to the Salvation Army, I just wouldn't be able to live with myself if I had tried to sell it.

Anyone who talks about changing out parts until they hit on the one causing the problem does not deserve to be called a "professional mechanic"...

"Groping bozo" would be a more appropriate title.

The mechanic is NOT to blame under the said conditions... If a vehicle has a faulty ECM (engine control module) or computer in other words, the vehicle will not provide the mechanic with data worthy of condemning other malfunctioning parts of the vehicle. In cases where the engine computer is not faulty, it is a common occurence for a part to malfunction and to not set a repair code in the computers memory. In either of these cases, the only thing left for a professional mechanic to do is research in Idenifix (for other mechanics having similar problems) or to make an educated guess at what the problem may be and replace/repair parts accordingly.

Hope this helps you understand the vehicle diagnosing process a little better. It's not ALWAYS the mechanics fault.

I think the service codes just take you to the perimater, but don't correct the probblem. Most probblems are wire conecters that need cleaning. Water in the gas tank causes stalling. Lesebre is know for its intermiting stalling. The codes the ecm gives you are not even close. It just points you in maybe in a good direction, mean while all the money gone into moduels and sensers has proven inefective.