Okay my car has been sitting for about 8 months now and I'm trying to get it back on the road. When I try to crank the car up, the engine shakes a bit and idles. The car doesn't turn over until I put my foot on the gas pedal. I hold it for a few seconds and it sounds like it'll hold on it's on, but when I let my foot off the gas, the car shuts down. It's really frustrating because I don't know any mechanics personally. Do any of you know what this may sound like?

EDIT:

Car:

1998 Pontiac Grand Prix SE V6 3.1 Liters Roughly 160,000 miles

First... do you have a check engine light on? Second, possible MAF sensor, but that's a vague guess.

Possible vac leak?

On the MAF sensor, one way to test is to try to run it with the MAF disconnected. Car detects no signal from MAF and will revert to using the VE table. If it starts/runs better with MAF disconnected, then likely that the maf was bad.

Welcome to the site. I was too tired last night and didn't really read what was going on here.

I'd suggest that you replace all fluids and filters, possibly the fuel pump and/or sending unit. Strongly consider cleaning the injectors or replacing them. Also look at plug fouling and weak wires. Pretty much, you're looking at a single Soldier's car that didn't have anyone to drive while s/he was deployed. Seeing that you hail from GA, I'd say that was quite the possibility; what with Benning, Stewart, Gordon, Hunter, Warner-Robbins, Brunswick et al.

Maybe your idle air control (iac) is bad and not throwing a code? I had to replace ours this week because it was idling way too high and didn't throw the code. It had thrown the code the day before and I had it reset but I knew why it was idling high so I went ahead and replaced it. Before though, the car would not crank if it had been setting over night on the first try or so but then would catch on. It seems to be running good now though.

Just a thought, and welcome to the board!!!!!!

Okay, I'm not no car expert or mechanic so I wouldn't be able to do any of these things myself. I'm just trying to gain information to hopefully find the problem and call someone else to fix it.

@ RooK: Yes, the Check Engine Light is on and what exactly is the MAF sensor?

@DenverGT: So possible Vac Leak and/or maybe the MAF sensor again?

@Richard Candelario: So when you say replace all fluids, do you mean ALL (Transmission Fluid, Oil, Power Steering, Gas in Car, etc.?)

@snowcrash: Thank you. I will write that down on my list of possible issues.

Thank you all again for your help and for welcoming me onto the board.

Image courtesy of www.compnine.com


The MAF Sensor is to the right of the arrow (top pic), and #7 in the bottom pic. You can unplug it and see if the car runs better, as DenverGT suggested.
The check engine light on means you have one or more codes stored in the PCM. You can get the codes checked at AutoZone. Hope this helps, and welcome aboard!

Get the car to autozone or pepboys or something and have them read the code. Then come back here and tell what the code is. Don't worry about the description of the code just the code numbers them selves like P300 for example.

We'll go from there.

my 2000 gtp was doing something like yours it was my MAF sensor which is located on my intake... but mine didn't die if i took off the gas, id say it might be your fuel pump... but definitely take it to get the error code b4 you spend money on a part that isn't broke :P