2004 Pontiac Bonneville 3.8L drives great but if accelerate too fast cuts off

Asked by Lettyrod Jan 06, 2016 at 07:20 PM about the Pontiac Grand Prix

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

While driving the 2004 Pontiac Bonneville 3.8L it drives perfect, shifts well and
all. If one accelerates too quickly or too hard vehicle backfires and shuts
off...any ideas?....any one?

8 Answers

221,315

Possible fuel pump. Running out of pressure, gas. Check fuel pump pressure to verify.

1 people found this helpful.
18,285

Could also be a plugged catalytic converter although that doesn't usually make the car stall. Check the trouble codes. You will probably find some clues there. I had similar symptoms with an older Bonneville. It was throwing all kinds of codes and the mechanic felt the ECM was failing. I found if I drove it gently it would run fine. The car was pretty well miled out by then and got wrecked that winter so I never had to fix it.

Ok Here's what already been done...Fuel Pump, ECM, Cat, TP Sensor, MAF Sensor. There were no codes, after new ECM, it only threw out a O2 sensor, which led me to believe Cat clogged, replaced CAT...still same issue drives fine with a slow acceleration, a hard acceleration or quick acceleration, vehicle backfires & cuts off but starts right back up

ok. Could be timing but now thinking bent or burnt valves may be the culprit, not sure. Think that there in lays the problem!! Will let you know!!

221,315

That motor has a timing chain, not likely to have jumped time. To verify this and bad valves just do a compression test.

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