Questions and Answers

Mercury Sable Dies Intermittently Q. Hi, I found your site and love it, but haven't quite found the problem I am having, close but not quite. The car is a 1987 Mercury Sable GS Wagon 3.0 liter V-6 automatic transmission and almost 200,000 miles on the clock. The problem while driving can be anywhere, any time or climate conditions but most happening in the spring or fall driving.

Down the road it will suddenly stop running. Speed isn't a factor any speed it seems like it is random. The car will stop running, tachometer down to zero. You can, most of the time, restart it without pulling over. Just put it in neutral and off it goes. And then there are times like yesterday; it has been towed because it refuses to start.

What I have noticed is when it quits like this and refuses to start the fuel pump doesn't run. The car will spin over but no pump. It is a new pump. You can jump the system and make the pump run but the car will still act like it isn't getting fuel. When the pump won't run we also noticed none of the dash indicator lights would work either.

When the lights come on, the pump runs and it will start. Also after sitting for an extended period of time after quitting like this it will start and run enough to get home, quitting and restarting all the way. But then, like the past two months, it was fine, no problems at all.

This is a random but dangerous problem and I am now afraid to drive it. When we first got the car it had some wire harness chafing that was fixed. I have had it three years now.

Any clue on this one??? I can wait for an answer as we are still trying to find a solution and the car is sitting in the garage until then. We have also changed the computers in it with no change in the randomness of the actions.

The only code we got out of it was a PIP failure but have no idea where to look for this part. And we haven't done anything to the distributor yet either I know grasping at straws but I really like my car.

Thank you for any help you can give here.
Lin

A. The PIP is Profile Ignition Pickup. The PIP Signal is created in the Hall Effect and Stator assembly and indicates crankshaft position and engine RPM. The PIP signal is fed to both the Thin Film Ignition (TFI) module and the ECA.

What confuses me is the fact the dash indicators go out with the pump. And jumping the pump will still not run the engine.

I would have to say, at this point, the problem is not in the fuel system, but rather in the distributor where the PIP signal originates.