# 2001 mercury sable

**URL:** <https://community.cartalk.com/t/2001-mercury-sable/74510>\
**Category:** Maintenance/Repairs\
**Tags:** mercury, sable\
**Created:** [September 8, 2012, 2:41am UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/2001-mercury-sable/74510 "2012-09-08T02:41:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jlg8080](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b19c9b/32.png) [@jlg8080](https://community.cartalk.com/u/jlg8080)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 2:41am UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/2001-mercury-sable/74510/1 "2012-09-08T02:41:52Z")

</div>

i was driving the other day and the car just had a small sputter and shut off now when i turn it over it turns real fast like there is no compression if i press the gas pedal it sounds like it almost wants to start but wont and i can hear a small backfire through the air intake . i tried spraying starting fluid in the intake to see if maybe it were a fuel problem but it did no fire same result . has anyone here had this problem of delt with this before ?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jlg8080](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b19c9b/32.png) [@jlg8080](https://community.cartalk.com/u/jlg8080)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 2:43am UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/2001-mercury-sable/74510/2 "2012-09-08T02:43:35Z")

</div>

also car is a 3.0 v6 ohv engine with 114000 k

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BustedKnuckles](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/cartalk/user_avatar/community.cartalk.com/bustedknuckles/32/25_2.png) [@BustedKnuckles](https://community.cartalk.com/u/BustedKnuckles)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 2:50am UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/2001-mercury-sable/74510/3 "2012-09-08T02:50:12Z")

</div>

I’ll bet the timing chain jumped. I’ve also seen a camshaft snap, but that is very rare. No compression means that there is a cylinder leak, like valves stuck open or not moving, or a massive breach in the cylinders.