2003 Mercury Sable Transmission and drivetrain Problems

“In 2014,. My power train (transmission) stopped propelling my car. Several years earlier, my friend who owned a Mercury Sable (the same type car as I am writing to you about), had the same transmission failure while on an interstate highway. He had approximately the same mileage on his car that I had when our transmissions failed. This type of failure is dangerous yet the ford motor co. Advised me there had not been a recall. Please advise.”

“Vehicle accelerates on it's own. Have had multiple problems where I go to stop and car accelerates at a stop sign or light. I have almost rear ended multiple cars because of this. While going from a red to green light on a hill my Sable stalled and began to roll backwards, almost crashing into the car behind me, if it hadn't been for my quick reaction. Vehicle will idle very high, 2.5rpms at the lowest, while sitting in park after startup. After a 5 minutes it will sometimes drop down to 750-1000rpms, other times it will continue to idle high. …”

“I started my car to take it for an oil change. With the engine warmed up I shifted into gear to go. Without any warning symptoms (no clunking, no grinding gears, no loss of fluids,...) the transmission decided to completely fail. The car would not go forward nor backwards as no gears were working. As this is now the third complete failure of the transmission on this car, I am trying to decide if I should try to get it repaired again. In all my years of driving, this is the only car that I have owned that has had transmission problems. …”

“I was driving north on us31 just north of muskegon, michigan. I was going 70 MPH when with no warning the car (2003 Mercury Sable) lost drive train power and was suddenly only coasting. I had to pull of onto the shoulder of the highway in heavy traffic. Also I had my three adult autistic children with me, and they all got extremely nervous sitting at the side of the highway as the passing cars were making our vehicle move from the air currents. I was very concerned one of them might try and jump from the car from panic. …”

“I left home for work. All parts of vehicle working fine. I put my blinkers on to make a left turn, which I executed. Half-way down the street, the car began to lose power, but was still running. I tried shifting to another gear - nothing. There was no warning, no sound, just nothing. I attempted to get the car to the side of the one way street with parking on both sides. I could not move the car. Thankfully this did not occur on an interstate, or I would have been killed. Had to call aaa, get the vehicle towed. My garage said it was catastrophic torque converter loss. …”