Greetings guys! I’ve used this forum a LOT over the years to get very useful information on my 99 Oldsmobile Bravada, and for that I thank you. But now I am coming with a question of my own, before I give in and take it to a shop and spend tons of money on it.. or worse, send her to the junk yard.

Driving a V6 4.3L Olds Bravada AWD w/ 182,000 miles. First symptom was a fluctuating fuel gauge 3 – 4 months ago. It would just bounce all over the place. Did a complete tune up on my car about 3 months ago, spark plugs, fuel filter, serpentine belt, etc. Didn’t fix the fuel filter bouncing around, but hey I just started resetting my trip counter at every fill up. That’s all back story.

About a month ago, I’m driving up to a red light and they car stalls out. All of the dash gauges bounce around like crazy (flicker back and fourth real fast for a few seconds) and all dash lights come on as If I had just put the key into the ‘on’ position. Scared me, but started right back up and nothing happened the rest of the way to work. Then coming home it did it going about 30mph again while accelerating. I thought it may have been a low idle issue, but this was weird. Now it does it at all speeds, around 5-10mph and over 50mph mostly (scary when it does it on the highway…) Guages fly around and lights flash every time, but always starts back up.
Got in there and started changing things, Changed the distributor cap and rotor, alternator, battery, battery cables look great, cleaned throttle body. After all of that thought I had it fixed but alas, happened again a few days ago. This now coming with a rough idle, and real rough (bucking) around 1K rpm. This seems to be out of no where as it was running fine before (besides the whole dieing out).
This is a big concern because I have small children and the thought of them being in the car with me on the highway or something and this happening is very scary.
Any ideas? I WANT to think it’s the fuel pump, but I want to be certain before I spend the money. The ignition switch is also suspect… I want to hear what you guys think before I throw any more money at this car not to fix anything

Throwing the dreaded P0300 code and P0453, along with some ABS codes i'm not concerned with at the moment. Thanks for anything you all can offer!

 

I would lean more towards the ignition switch from all the info you have provided because if your gauges are cycling then they would have to have lost power and reset. A fuel pump wouldn't do all that

 

That's what I was thinking at first, but then the rough idle came about with the bucking and I started thinking maybe the pump. I've changed the ignition switch before on an old thunderbird of mine, and I swore I'd never do it again, but now I'm considering it..

Would a failing ignition switch cause a rough idle? or so you think that's a separate issue?

 

U need to test fuel pressure, if I had to guess u are suffering from the poppets leaking.....this of course is in addition to my vote for the ignition switch