Questions and Answers

Mercury Sable No Crank, No Start Q. Hi, I have a 1993 Mercury Sable, 3.0 liter automatic transmission, F.I. with 172,000 miles. About a month ago, when I would shift FROM reverse to drive, or when I am in drive and take my foot of the brake and start to give it gas, it nearly stalls out on me. About four days ago it succeeded in stalling. I managed to push it to the side of the road to get it started, but no luck.

I didn't get any thing, like a dead battery. I hooked up my handy dandy battery jumper, and still nothing. Then I thought it may be my neutral safety switch. I jammed it out of park, and back in and got it started. Took it into have it repaired. Mechanic said there's nothing wrong with the switch, it was just a fluke that it worked.

The next day It happened again, except this time it made the rrr-rrr-rrr of a healthy battery but no actual start, just cranked. Finally got it started either by putting the gas down to the floor, or mere coincidence again. It seems to do this only when the engine's cold, and it's cold outside. Any suggestions?

Thanks a bunch,
Carrie

A. You could try moving somewhere where it's warm all the time. Then you wouldn't have to worry about it. Don't want to move? Okay, let's try something else.

There's two different symptoms here. No crank and crank, no start. The no crank could be attributed to a Neutral Safety Switch (NSS), but a bad NSS would not cause a crank, no start condition and vise versa. That would be due to a loss of spark or fuel.

With these symptoms I would have to suspect a bad ignition switch as the most likely cause.