[Olsen4]

The electrical components started dying from right to left. Radio starts fading, the warning lights on the rt. side start going on, the tach dies, ac dies, the speedometer dies, all guages die, the electric windows die, and the last time the engine quit( at 60) and when I was coasting about to pull over at 20mph everything came back to life. I could smell a slight electrical burn.This happened about 7 months ago & then 5 months ago, but the car didn't stop running. A month after that the battery died and I have a new one which I had checked. It's ok and the alt. is putting out. After each incident, the car ran fine. This started around 37k miles, now 43k. Ford said bring it in and we'll start checking at $90/hr. any ideas
Thank you for any help.

 

[Craig Taurus]

Check for loose connections and or corrosion on the ground wires, battery, firewall or anywhere you see a ground strap, make sure that the ground is in first rate condition and no cracking on the battery, something like this happened on my aunts explorer and I had to strip back the ground wire on the battery it was corroded under the insulation, when a ground is bad all kinds of weird things happen, this also happens with the positive wire, wire looks intact by the battery, but when its stripped back it usually green with corrosion, you can strip this back or get a new one.

 

[gpedens]

Olsen, it might be a leak. Have you seen any water or antifreeze on the floor mat under the steering colum or on the fuse panel? As Craig says cleaning the battery wires might help too. I like to also clean the battery terminals and put some battery terminal grease and use those red and green anticorrosion felt washers. There is a hard black oxide that forms on the negative battery terminal if I remember correctly. The symptom is usually the starter will just click or chatter when you try to start the car.

 

[jpotter]

I just got done troubleshooting my 1998 taurus for a similar problem. Granted my car is 8 years old but it might help. My car would be fine one day then die on the road the next with similar instrument and radio problems you were having. I had the battery load tested by 2 separate places and it was fine. I removed the alternator and had it tested good (twice). I replaced the negative battery cable and added an additional ground strap from the engine block to the chasis. While I had the alternator out, I decided to change the regulator and brushes (a complete overhaul kit costs around $40). When I removed the assembly, one of the brushes fell to the bottom of the alternator. It's wire was broken off and was only making contact sometimes and the brush was mangled and significantly shorter than the other one. I could tell it was riding in the alternator cocked to one side. It was hard to track down because it was intermittent and I was helped by some luck but this fixed everything and it is running fine.

 

[gpedens]

I suspose it could be the alternator, but they typically last 100000 miles or more. My wifes 02 sable suffered a dead battery 2 times in the last 10 days. But it only done that after sitting for about 3 days and not being started. The battery is about 1 year old. The only thing I found is that the current drain is about 0.2 amps with nothing on. I checked my 97 sable and it too has 0.2 amps drain and I have let it set for a week without being started and it doesnt go dead. The wifes 02 ( about 60K miles) is also burping transmission fluid. It burped about 2 tablespoons about a month ago and the same amount 2 more times about 4 days ago. I guess I'll just take it to the shop today and let them do the 30000 mile maintenance on the transmission. It seems Ford has numerous problems with their AXOD, AX4S, and AX4N automatic transmissions.