irish girl. You wrote "My main mechanic found nothing wrong with the car but said that the cat. converter was hot so it must be plugged and he sent me to the guy who welded my muffler to have it changed. They changed it but did not believe that that was the problem. That cost $110.00. It didn't help" First of all, a hot catalytic convertor is one that is working. If it's glowing RED HOT, then it's overworking because there is a problem in the engine allowing too much air, and unburned fuel into the exhaust. On top of that, find one good shop and tech and stick with him/her. Stop ping-ponging around. Your only compounding your own misery. You wrote" The other day the check engine light came on and I went to Auto Zone who told me it was the O2 sensor just before the convertor." Looks like you fell for the "free diagnosis" and you got what you paid for, an O2 sensor that cannot be proven you actually needed now. You wrote. "My mechanic changed that, changed the plugs and fixed my brakes and rotors for a grand total of $289.00 and my car is still wanting to stall or stalling." Don't lump in your brake work as part of the total you have spent to fix the stalling symptom. They have nothing to do with each other. Treat them as if the brakes were replaced on a different car. You wrote, and now we are concentrating on the stalling. " It stalls or tries to at lights, in drive-through's and now it stalls if I'm going along at a pretty good speed and stop. I told my main mechanic it was still bad and he said that he would clean the throttle body for me that that could be it." That is a plausible answer to the stalling, a good tech can prove if this service is required, and can perform it easily. It's also possible the symptom can be caused by something else affecting the air entering the engine at low RPM's, and the computers response to correct this is exactly the same as a dirty throttle body, and that is for the computer to command the IAC to open wider than normal. This would be a "cut a tree down to see the forest step" in some cases. Sort of once you find something that can cause a particular problem, you stop looking until you prove the problem still exists. You wrote" The mechanic who changed the converter hooked a machine up to my car drove it around with that thing hooked up to it. He said that all of the sensors are working and things are firing or whatever and he seems to think that the tune-up should have been taken further. He suggests that the boots and coils and that plastic thing that holds it all should be changed." Some more specific information would be invaluable here. I can guess what I think he is feeling in the car, and that is still a missfire. The Quad 4's are prone to having trouble with the coil cover and spark plug boots. If there is a problem there, the plugs should be changed again! The reason the plugs need changed again is the boots could be carbon tracked, and allowing the spark to leak right down along the outside of the spark plug, where the boot contacts it. This causes the new spark plug to also carbon track, and it will in turn result in a missfire, and damage the new boot starting the cycle all over again. "I'm running out of money. What is your opinion?" One shop, one tech for everything. Stop ping-ponging. Find someone that can not only diagnose and repair this, but will communicate exactly what they are going to do and why. The O2 sensor replacement is a clue IMO, to an air/fuel ratio issue. This can cause excessive spark demand under certian conditions, and contribute to the coil cover/ spark plug boot problem. There is no more expensive way to attempt to fix one of today's cars than to pull a code and throw a part at it. That's the limit of the ability of a parts store employee when it comes to diagnosing a check engine light. Just because you pull a lean exhaust "O2 sensor" code from the computer, that does not condem the O2 sensor. If you had showed up here with an O2 sensor in your hand telling me Auto Zone had diagnosed it, I would have sent you away. I definately would not have just installed it, because that is not enough proof to me that you really need it.

Here's the deal. Over a period of time, some six months, you have experienced a driveability symptom of a rough idle. The first one was accompanied by a check engine light, which means a trouble code was set for a circuit that was not operating correctly. The O2 sensor was replaced, the lamp went out and has been out. "IF" the replacement of the O2 sensor had not repaired the circuit fault, the check engine light would have come back on, reguardless of what the engine idle quality was. Those details right there are sufficient to say that they were right about that part of this situation, and you approached this unfairly trying to claim you were ripped off with the sensor replacement. Your April 7th report of "problem returns" should read the rough idle returned. Cars don't actually have only one possible cause for any symptom. There are many things that can cause a poor/rough/unsteady idle, and they are only related by the sensation the driver feels coming from the car. They did not diagnose a problem, they also didn't just throw a couple of handfulls of parts at it did they? Tell me exactly how that falls under the meaning of the word "Unscrupulous"? From here, it looks like the worst they could be blamed for is having an inexperienced technician, who reported honestly exactly what he/she found. On July 7th you took it back in, and with whatever transpired the EGR was replaced. Did the idle quality improve when they did that compared to before you took it in to when you picked it up or was there no difference at all? An EGR valve sticking slightly open can certaintly cause the symptom you reported, but once again it's not the only thing that can do it. Good shops stop when they see no reason to go forward with repairs, even if some things are suspect. It's the "unscrupulous" ones that will hang every part they can in order to make sure that nothing is missed and the symptom stays gone. Like it or not, the "honest" ones have to allow the car to show them if more work needs done, and that is only determined by the owners reporting of any remaining, or additional symptoms. Oh, it helps immensely BTW if the reporting of the sympoms is acurate to the facts of what the car is doing, not what someone "thinks" it's doing. Now at the time of your post, your saying the symptoms you are noticing are "The idle is louder than normal and I feel vibration in my drivers seat and the steering wheel." You easily could be describing, a problem with the engine's coolant fan, an AC issue, a bad engine mount, and others. You could NOT be describing a failed O2 sensor, nor an EGR valve problem. Gary has done well in getting you to take a step back and start to understand the real possibility that not only has the dealer done good, and correct work, this easily may be something beyond anyones control. Cars are complicated, and inspite of what so many will want to claim, not just anybody can fix cars, because in order to fix them, one has to first truly understand them and that takes years of study, and decades of hands on experience. To help you with the dealer, and with your car I can give you this. Report the symptom exactly as it occurs. See if outside ambient temperature, use of the air conditioner or not, the amount of time stopped to idle, or whether it's in park, reverse, or drive or some combination of these have any impact on the symptoms you are feeling. From there leave it in their hands, because it does not sound like they have really done anything wrong. Oh, and the cost? Totally irrelevant, you cannot judge a shop fairly by what something cost you. Unless it can truly be proven that something you did not need was done, and you have not done that here.

Depends on what you call a safety issue. I believe '88 is before they put air bags in everything so that might be a safety issue to you. You've already delt with a lot of things that go bad on a car that sets forever. Tires, water pump, brakes. Now on the brakes, the fluid draws moisture and settles in low spots like in the master cylinder, wheel cylinders, calipers. It corrodes and makes pits in those areas. That can cause fluid leaks. Doesn't have to be a safety issue really more than just something else to fix. If whoever did your brakes checked for that and flushed the system you should be ok. Another potential concern is the condition of the coolant. Old coolant becomes corrosive and can be hard on freeze plugs and gaskets. Again, more of a reliablilty issue than a saftey issue. Seals and gaskets often times seem to go bad in time whether a vehicle is driven or not. Aside from what issues an '88 Olds might have had in '88, that's the major old car issues that pop into my head. I'd say keep it and drive it a while. As far as safety goes, it's about as safe as it ever was. jmo

FWIW, I avoid aftermarket O2 sensors as much as possible. There is a clear difference in the O.E. part when it comes to accuracy and long term performance. That being said, when I see a part replaced and a code reset, my routine is to test the vehicle again from the beginning as if it has never been serviced the first time. This allows me to not assume that the part is either OK, nor defective. In otherwords, I test as if it's a completely different vehicle, and that routine allows me to solve problems that other techs/shops get stuck on. Cowboy is correct that even a lot of techs get stuck in the pull a code, change a part trap. The funny thing is, they get that way because it's what the public wants. While I have a diagnostic fee to just get started, they may attempt to give into public price pressure and try and do the diagnostics for a vary small fee, or even FREE. Well this is just like anything else, you get what you pay for, sometimes even less. Overall the worst thing that happens is after the owner spends a ton of money whether by their own hand, or with someone elses help and they have been unsuccessful with a repair, then they show up at a shop like mine crying how they already spent all that money and the car is still broke, almost as if it's my fault and now I'm supposed to make it right without earning a living doing so. Quite frankly when it happens too many times I am not afraid to send the customer permanently out the door. The most recent was a person that owns an Infinity Q45. They fooled around several times over the last few years, and each time I bailed them out. This last time they came to me first, I did the diagnostics only to see them take the repair to another shop for $5.00 less than I was going to charge! Heck they spent that $5.00 in gas just getting to that other shop and back home. Well they are free to make that choice, and now they can live with it, because between me, and the dealer, no-one else has full software support for their car, and it will never come back in here. My Choice......