Does your car not start? Think your fuel pump is going out? Keep blowing fuel pump relays? Then keep reading.
Had this happening in my 08 Buick Lucerne. Basically the rear seat brackets on the left hand side stick out a bit too far and push on the side of the fuse box. This is a known issue and has had recalls; apparently GM has made a low profile relay to help with this but I haven't come across it yet, however once you get to the point of blowing relays I am doubtful it will help as the socket is too loose by then. But ultimately this pushing from the seat bracket on the side of the fuse box over time as people get in and out loosens or wears out the female/female spade style connector inside the fuse box that runs from the base of the fuse box to the pins that your relays / fuses plug into (inside). Over time this results in a loose connection to the fuel pump relay pin #30. This is your 12volt constant. So due to this poor connection you get arcing and the relay struggles to get the proper voltage gets hot and burns out which compounds the issue over time. Very rarely is the culprit the fuel pump in these cars from my understanding. You can test fuel pump amperage and ensure proper functioning by jumping from pin 30 to pin 87 on the fuse block and turn the key to the on position; if the fuel pump kicks on / car starts it is not the culprit. If you want to be more thorough you can check the amps, you should be somewhat stable between 8.0 and 9.5 amps to the pump.
Unfortunately once this starts to occur your options are limited (4th option is fix shown in video).
Ultimately you have four options.
1.) The optimum solution is to replace the box and cut the seat brackets back (should cut brackets regardless of what fix you do). This is easy to do but expensive. Costs will range 200-260 for junkyard / used on ebay up to 6-700 from the dealership.
2.) You can split the box and install new female to female style spade terminals but this requires drilling out x3 of the grommets to get the box apart to get to them, new pins can be purchased on ebay for around 8 bucks for a pack of x2. Looks difficult and will damage the box permanently but should fix the issue.
3.) If you are pretty electrically savvy you can buy an external relay and bypass the one in the box. This would require finding a 12 v constant (add 20 amp in line fuse), 12v switched (15amp in line fuse), fuel pump wire and grounding the relay.
4.) Finally would be to do this as a temporary / long term fix. Jumper from a good 12v constant to supplement the damaged relay pin 30 with a stable current. Looks like allot of these relays have a fuse in close proximity, for example the 20 amp fuse next to the fuel pump relay in the top left corner of the box. Protects the 12 volt constant to the relay. So what I did was ran a 20 amp inline fuse and attached to one of the two copper spade terminals located in the fuse box, the one closest to the front of the car seems to be a 12 volt constant and the one just below has no voltage (probably a ground); I'm assuming these were added for easy accessory hook up. From that spade terminal I ran a 20 amp inline fuse to the damaged pin 30 of the relay, this should eliminate the chance of taxing another relays available current too much while still providing protection to that the relay. If my logic is correct since we are now splitting the circuit if you swapped the two 20 amp fuses for 10 amp then the overall circuit should have 20 amp protection overall but I'm not 100% on that perhaps somebody can chime in.
Been about two weeks, relay is remaining warm while running and no longer getting scolding hot and it has stopped blowing, everything is working correctly and I haven't had any issues since.
**update. 06/24/24; 6 months later. still going strong. no issues. **
Link to inline fuse (20amps / 16ga)
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...
Wire gauge is 16ga.
Good luck folks! Your feedback is appreciated if this can be improved upon or if there are any potential issues with this fix; please let us know so we can help others. If you did this fix and it helped you leave a comment or a like so others in your position can see the video and keep money in their pocket.