My 1983 Buick riviera engine stops without turning off the ignition while it seems while making right turns, it starts immediately when I turn the ignition switch to start. Any ideas what causes this to happen? It’s not fun tying to steer and brake going around a corner
Likely this is an electrical problem that will take some serious investigation. On a car this old, wires become brittle and corroded. The act of turning the car right makes the engine (a big heavy lump) shift left and that may cause a wire on the left to touch ground or each other. Conversely, it may tug on wire to the right and disconnect the ignition.
Start searching and good luck!
Used to have a 1973 Pontiac LeMans that did that if the car wasn’t warmed up. If the car had time to warm up after starting it then it wouldn’t do. It needed a carburetor overhaul which I think may have had something to do with it. I used to have to rev the car up for a few minutes or take it up over 100 mph out on no traffic rd roughly about two weeks to blow the carburetor out.
Try letting it warm up for a while before putting it into drive, more so on cold days in winter
Somewhere in here one of the folks had the same thing with a customer’s car and turned out to be a loose battery cable, but yeah someone will need to start taking a look. My Morris Minor used to honk the horn when I was making a right turn. A little black tape on the turn signal switch stopped it from grounding out.
Remove the distributor cap and wiggle the rotor.
If the rotor wiggles, replace the distributor.
Tester
Try driving w/just the one key in the ignition. If it helps, replace the ignition switch. Sometimes a dangling key chain can put enough force on a worn ignition switch during turns that this symptom is the result.