Trent’s 1995 Buick Riviera: Parked Five Years, Trailered 600 Miles, Saved

Trent Coates sent us this in February 2015. It is a first-car story, which are the ones that stay with people: he bought his 1995 Buick Riviera at 22, lost it to circumstances for five years, and went a very long way to get it back.

Four years, then the long park

“In 2004 at 22 years old I bought a 1995 Buick Riviera, my first real car. I drove it for the next nearly 4 years. I love this car. I dealt with intermittent cut off/no start issues during this time without really knowing the cause. In 2008 the car needed a few repairs and I had recently lost my job so I parked the car until I could get other affairs in order.”

The 600 mile rescue

“In 2013, now living in NC and working in an auto garage I saw the opportunity to revive my Riv. I saved up the money, borrowed a trailer and rented a truck to make the 600 mile trek back to KY to get my car.”

He cleaned the fuel tank, replaced the pump, lines, injectors, battery and brakes, and had the car running again. Then the five-year-old gremlin reintroduced itself.

Half a second from victory

“When I placed the new battery in the vehicle it fired right up, ran for half a second and directly cut off. This was frustrating to say the least. Spent a lot of time trying relearn procedures and troubleshooting only to have the issue persist. Bypassed the key chip and still the problem remained. I was so close to having my car back, this car I love and then BAM! Nothing.”

Note what he had already tried: relearn procedures, and bypassing the key chip, which is the resistor trick. On a 1995 Riviera both of those aim at the wrong end of the problem, because the fault is not in what the key reports. It is in the module doing the judging, and no relearn or spoofed resistance changes what a failing judge decides. The start-then-die in half a second is the giveaway: the engine runs until the theft logic weighs in, and then the fuel goes away.

It’s alive

“So in my research I come across this bypass module and I finally decide to try it out And see if it can fix this issue once and for all. I got the module in the mail and that afternoon, with a little help from my buddies it was installed in maybe a half hour. The moment of truth. I insert the key, cycle on the fuel pump, spin it over and… IT’S ALIVE! It is now on the road and I have yet to experience any security related issues. THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME MY CAR BACK!”

Why the Riviera does this

The 1995 to 1999 Riviera shares its setup with the Oldsmobile Aurora: a Theft Deterrent Module under the right side of the dash reads the key’s resistor pellet and controls whether fuel keeps flowing. It is the same generation of hardware that produced Trent’s original intermittent cut-offs back in 2004 to 2008; five years of sitting did not heal it, and the full mechanical revival could not touch it. The NEWROCKIES PRO Module takes the TDM’s vote away permanently, which is why a half-hour install ended a problem that predated the car being parked.

If you have a Riviera or Aurora

The TDM location and full wiring are here: 1995-1999 Buick Riviera and Oldsmobile Aurora installation guide.

Related stories on the blog. Same TDM, other cars: Alvin’s 1996 Aurora, which shares this wiring, and Cassandra’s LeSabre.

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