I have a 1995 Pontiac Bonneville 3800 that has a starting problem. This is an intermittent problem that after running and sitting for twenty minutes or more it will not start. It will crank but there is no spark. It has never had a problem when first started in the morning. I assume it cannot be a pass key II issue because it will crank. After it finally starts it run fine. Any help will be appreciated, it has been doing this for a year and slowly getting worse, any time I leave the car with my mechanic it works fine. HELP!

Welcome to Bonneville Club. Some possibilities: Bad battery cables, bad ground bus, bad ground for PCM, bad ground for ICM, bad Crank Position Sensor, bad Powertrain Control Module.

X2 in that order.

Welcome to Bonneville Club. Some possibilities: Bad battery cables, bad ground bus, bad ground for PCM, bad ground for ICM, bad Crank Position Sensor, bad Powertrain Control Module.

Bad cables ? I could crank the engine
Bad ground bus. where is it? I will clean it.
For all how do I test. It doesn't start warm, I crank, wait 5 minutes and retry it will restart within
the hour.

Thanks for the help!!

Lenny

The search feature at the top of the page is your friend. Just put those titles (like "battery cables" ) in the keyword line, and use a gearhead name like willwren or Archon or BillBoost37 or anyone else with a bunch of stars in their avatar in the author line (or leave it blank) and you will pull up lots of useful posts. All of the items mentioned above have been well covered in previous posts. Corroded cables cause lots of problems while still able to crank engine (yeah, go figure!)

On your 95, the common ground bus is under the carpet below the driver side kickplate near the front of the front door. PCM ground is near oil filter. ICM ground is underneath ICM (coils) on long bolt.

To do diagnostic tests to isolate the specific problem, you need to be ready to do the tests at the time the car is acting up. There are a lot of guys here with the Factory Service Manual that provides those diagnostics, but no one has the expensive Tech II tool that is often required. To fix it when it is starting fine is more challenging and more expensive, but not impossible.

It could be that none of the items I mentioned above will resolve your problem, but if you are patient with us, we will be patient with you and keep working with you until you get it fixed. There is an unbelievable amount of Bonneville repair expertise here. We will try to approach things that are most likely to be the problem as you describe it, or are cheap or free to check and repair.

Thanks for the info, I will start cleaning all the grounds

Lenny Berk

How do you get it started? How long does it take?

I'm wondering if you hear the fuel pump running in the tank for a couple seconds when you turn the key on?

Fuel pressure regulator?

How do you get it started?
Just wait couple of minutes then crank and repeat .
How long does it take? could be a hour

I'm wondering if you hear the fuel pump running in the tank for a couple seconds when you turn the key on? I do hear the fuel pump

Fuel pressure regulator? It is not a fuel problem. I put a spark plug tester on the wires
and have no spark!

Thanks
Lenny Berk

A possibility is the crank sensor, they do fail when they get warm.

Can the crank sensor be intermittent only when starting when the car is warm?