1996 Mercury Sable battery won't hold charge

DAVE SCHRAM

MEMBER
1996 MERCURY SABLE

Electrical problem
1996 Mercury Sable 6 cyl Two Wheel Drive Automatic

The battery on my sabel seems to not hold a charge after a few days. I boost it and it will be fine for a 2 or 3 days then when I go to start it the nest day it's dead. When its dead the ccrm makes a humming sound when the key is removed which made me think its draining the battery, but once I charge it when the it dosn't make the noise anymore. Now my silly question my next step was to look at the altenator, should it be hot to the touch when the engine is running or is that a sign it isn't working properly and could that be my problem.

1 Reply

BRAVESTAR1

MECHANIC
234 POSTS

I would suggest taking your battery out and bringing it to a service center for testing.

It's been my personal experience that your battery has a "dead cell" inside it. This can happen at any time, especially on cheap "nEver-Start" batteries. Basically it'll charge fine for awhile, but leave it go, and the thing is dead.
Another possibility is a drain on the battery. Have a technician hookup to your main fuse center (that's the one under the hood, near the battery, not the one under the dash) and check for larger drains. Each one has some draw, but not enough to drain the battery very fast. A service manual is available that tells you the range of draws from each terminal fuse, and a good test meter will help considerably to tell which one is drawing the power.
If you find something, it may be a short, bad ground, or a defective sensor that could be the problem.