88 Ciera Stalling on acceleration

[chacnestoo]

Looking to buy an 88 Cutlass Ciera. Its sat for a year, new battery today...started fine, drove it for 25 minutes and stalled. Had trouble restarting, had to floor it to get it to start. idled fine....as soon as i touched the gas it stalled. Check engine light is on.....looking for thoughts on what thsi might be. Not my car and wondering if buy it, considering...is it worth it?

[maxwedge]

Welcome to AF, you must pursue some basic diagnostics here, no magic bullet, check the CEL codes, check for sufficient fuel pressure. Also get used to posting mileage and engine size.

[Tonglebeak]

This sounds a LOT like when I first got my car.

It was owned by a old lady who let the car sit except for maybe 10 miles per weekend.

The car would run fine for a while, but after getting warm I would notice much harder high shifts (I didn't know crap about cars then, but I know now it was a problem with the lockup solenoid in the tcc). After a certain point, the car would just flat out stall out. It would take roughly 5-10 minutes for it to cool off and run again, but it would eventually stall out again. And yes, if the car wasn't cooled down enough, the engine would restart, but putting it in gear would cause it to stall.

Lockup solenoid. Cost $21 for the part, $400 for AAMCO to repair it. -_- Althuogh I by no means can tell you what exactly is going on, I'm no transmission expert.

[chacnestoo]

Thanks for the info...... A couple more items, the engine is a 3.8 V6 fuel-injected with 66,000 miles on it. Before I get into too much work, since I'm not sure I want to buy the car. You think its worth putting gas treatment to stabalize it....since the car has sat for about a year?

[maxwedge]

Too late for that this should be done when first stored.

[Ian Szgatti]

Originally Posted by chacnestoo

the engine is a 3.8 V6 fuel-injected with 66,000 miles on it.

buy it. 66,000 miles is a drop in the bucket for this motor. when I first read this post thats the first thing that came to mind... old gas.
when you drove this car for that short period of time did you notice any knocks or other noises indicitive of inner engine or trans problems?? If not I suggest you get this car... its probably got so much life left in it. Is it rusty anywhere???