Car won't start. Possibly bad fuel pump

HAYLEYAK

MEMBER
1997 PONTIAC BONNEVILLE
3.8L
V6
AUTOMATIC
178,795 MILES

Basically. I was parked for 5 minutes. Car on. Then just completely turn off on me. It would crank but never start back up. All signs leaning toward bad fuel pump. Hoping something more basic as the cause.
Anyways, after about 4 hours I came out to try n start it. It started as normal. Held steady RPM so I attempted to drive it. About 5 minutes it just completely stopped getting gas as I pressed down and started to again die on me (not power related). Then of course would crank but not start back up.

Now, a couple days later, it's barely even getting to crank. Like a possible dead battery but all things (other than stuff mentioned first) are working fine.
It's just not wanting to even crank over now.

So now, after some online researching I'm trying to locate the fuel pump relay and fuel pump fuse which should be on passenger side just having trouble locatin it. Do I actually need to pull out the bottom under glove box and all that?

1 Reply

CARADIODOC

MECHANIC
33,916 POSTS

You're describing a multitude of conflicting symptoms. The fuel pump has nothing to do with cranking the engine so lets forget that for now. With a "cranks / no-start", you can't get hung up on the first thing you find missing or that you suspect. You also have to check for loss of spark. If you're missing fuel pressure AND spark, that leads to a whole different story that is much more common and likely than a bad fuel pump.

If the engine is cranking too slowly to start, first you need to charge the battery at a slow rate for an hour. Once it's cranking normally, when the engine stalls or doesn't start, check if you have spark.