My car keeps loosing power and shutting off?

Question

99 mercury sable ... car slowly looses power after being jump started .... it starts with bogus indiator lights coming on the dash (ABS failure, Airbag failure) and all the dials on the dash go to zero. Eventually the car will sputter off ... if the key is turned to start the car all I hear is a series of fast clicks with no response from the starter.

Battery and alternator has already been replaced ... 3 mechanics were able to get the car to run idle wthout a battery .... proving the intergrety of the alternator. But when driving down the street ... it may last 1 hour at best. (temp issue?)

So, if the same exact thing is happening with 2 new batteries and a new alternator ... I would thnk the problem lies within the wiring ... which brings me to this million dollar question.

If I run a copper cable from the pos terminal of the alternator to the pos terminal of the battery, will that rule out any connection problems.

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Answer 1

could be the ignitor

Answer 2

What I have seen in the past with this particular model, is the starter will develop a direct ground and cause the battery to drain and the alternator can't keep up with the charging. Buy or borrow a battery charger over the weekend when you don't have to work, and charge the battery. Then disconnect the starter over the weekend like on friday, then connect it back on sunday afternoon and see if it starts fine after you reconnect the starter. If so then change the starter.

The other way is to use a volt meter. Take the pos. terminal off and put the red tester probe on the pos. battery terminal and the black probe on the connector with the wire that connects to the starter. If the arm (analog) moves then you will see that current is moving thru the starter to ground, then have a friend remove the starter wire and see if the arm goes back to zero. If it goes to zero then you have found the problem. Then change the starter.

Answer 3

no,,doing that wont rule out any connection problems,what it might be doing is loosing ground somewhere on it,,they will not run right at all if the ground wire isn't good ,even if it gets corroded over they may run bad,,and it has a point on it where it connects to the body for ground,,this has to be good and clean,and also real tight,,i have had a lot of trouble with fords and ground wires ,there seems to be an issue with them loosing ground,id check all of this first,,i agree it sounds like an electrical issue,,finding it can be hard though,all i can tell you ,,without paying a big fee,is start checking it out,,you may actually find it ,,good luck hope this help,s.,happy new years also.