nope, he went home after we couldnt get it to not start any more, so he is driving back and forth to work i imagine havent heard from him because he works afternoon/nights and i work early

bump for new ideas, it has started fine without the throttle till yesterday or the day before then he said he couldnt get it to start at all. i called him earlier and told him to listen for the fuel pump, and or play with the throttle and see what happens(the pumps like to go when its negative temps before the wind chill) he sent a text back that it started and ran rough for 15minutes and he had to go to work so he took his truck. he said tomorrow he would try again and if it runs like crap he is going to bring it to me.

You said the MAF was fine, how was this determined?
What was the reading for the MAF when the car would actually idle?

I ask because I had a similar issue where the car would only start when I pumped the throttle, I found out that the tip on the MAF Sensor had came off, and was spinning around in there, and occasionally it would stop and block the air flow temp from being measured by the thermistors, and thus the car would not start again, unless it sucked in just enough air to spin it around a little on a start attempt, then it would run till the tip blocked airflow temp from being measured again.

I imagine what happened with my MAF is pretty rare, and may not be your issue, but I figured I'd mention the problem I once had just in case.
I'd remove the MAF, clean it, and put it back, even if that is not the issue I am sure the MAF could use a cleaning if not done recently.

i dont know if the reading is right, i just made sure it was some thing and went up when i revved it. you know what it is supposed to be? he is one of the if its not broke he dont want to mess with it types so i didnt get a chance to do anything after he left with it before

It should vary a little, but at idle my Actron was reading around .70 -.80, when the MAF was bad it would barely idle around .45

I'd at least have the MAF cleaned, and if it has the style MAF with the removable tip, make sure it has not come off, if it does the little dots that hold the tip in place can wear down thus letting the tip randomly spin, this happened in my case anyway.

well he said its acting like nothing happened now.

my scanner reads grams, and when my yukon needed cleaned it was down to 2-3 and now its 4-5. i think the lesabre was in that range

I had this problem with my Buick. Turned out all I need was new spark plugs

Ahhh, my scanner reads in pounds/minute, let me get that converted.

Your Yukon was 0.33 when dirty.

3.4 grams/second = 0.45 lb/m , this is around what my car ran at idle when the MAF was bad, a cleaning did little for it.

At idle with my 3800 II a new MAF reads around 0.70 lb/m, or 5.2-5.3 g/*.

When I had the problem with my MAF'* tip it would drive fine for a while, then occasionally act up, usually my problems would happen after I shut the car off, the tip would stop spinning, and occasionally block that hole the air passes through, thus starting it back would require me to pump the pedal, and eventually even that would not work..

ill keep that in mind, thanks

Hey there JW. I've seen where some people are reporting that a faulty ignition switch was the problem for this issue. Mostly their problem was consistent, but your in-laws Buick is VERY intermittent, so might be a little on the far fetched side. Also on the far fetched side could be a cam or crank sensor. I was hoping that the problem was solved, because my '88 Regal is having this problem again. The two probable causes I mentioned was the way I'm thinking now anyway.