How to lock your '97 Sable and disable your alarm

[MtnRainbows]

In recent days I've been dealing with new theft alarm gremlins in my 1997 Mercury Sable LS 4-door sedan. That's where the car alarm will go off intermittently (like at 4 am when I'm sleeping soundly) while locked and unmolested by any human hand or critter paw. It can do it every 10 minutes, or wait for 12 hours to go by but sooner or later that alarm is going off all by itself.

I actually love this car with a passion. It drives well on my curvy mountain roads, gets decent gas mileage on long road trips, and has only suffered minor but irritating problems. I bought it used three years ago (55,000). I've put less than 20,000 on it in three years. I don't drive much but I do love this car.

I'd like to consolidate what seems to be a temporary but low cost/no costless solution for several issues (and hope people like me can find it on a search engine).

1. If your dome light or door ajar warning lights won't go off or intermittently drives you insane (it also disables the auto lock safety feature while driving... and won't let you lock the driver's door... grrrr), 14 out of 15 times you can fix it with a can of WD40. Spray those lock latches, keyholes and hood/truck latches generously!!! Don't remove your doom lights like I did at first and not worry about it. Just clean up those door sensor and latches with the WD 40. The dealership said this was a "band aid" solution and would only work for a short time, if at all, but from my experience and others comments you can find all over, it works.

2. If you develop a theft (panic) alarm malfunction, what I call alarm gremlins as the darn thing goes off whenever it wants to, and you get really tired of doing this because you really need to lock your car and NOT have the alarm go off whenever it chooses , try this procedure and see if it works for you! So far this suits my need until I have the spare cash (yeah right ) to throw away at the car dealership. I hope it helps you too.

• Sit in your car and turn the ignition to the point where the dash lights up with all it's "warning" lights glowing. If you see the word THEFT glowing red (or whatever your car has) then chances are good you have a factory standard PANIC/THEFT system like I do. Okay... bear with me because no one seems to want to include all the steps...)
• While sitting in the driver's seat, remove the key from the ignition switch. If it's not already locked, lock your entire car with any electronic device, door switch, key fob, etc. Watch the lights on the dash. You should see THEFT glow solid for a few seconds then turn off.
• After a few seconds it will start blinking. That only means the anti-theft system is armed. If you sit there long enough, depending on the hatefulness of your particular gremlins, your alarm will go off. You know it will and you'll jump out of your skin when it finally does so why wait? I know either one of the door/hood sensors has failed or the alarm system has a malfunction... something I'm NOT willing to spend the money fixing if I don't have to.
• Through trial and error both inside and outside the car I discovered the following simple, and undocumented, solution. Of course, the anti-theft system will NOT be armed because of it, but I'm willing to live with that if I can simply lock the car and walk away without worry that the alarm will go off. Right? And no, I don't want to pull the fuse risking loosing some other function, or search out wires to cut or jumpers to be removed. I want simple and I want it now. Don't you?

1. While sitting in the driver's seat with the doors closed (yeah I know... duh...), if all the doors are not already locked, lock them using any method you want.
2. (Oh yeah... did you unload your car yet? Better get that done first, okay?)
3. Open your driver door using the handle provided. Exit car.
4. To lock the driver side door (which should be the only unlocked door) push down on the manual lock knob (yeah, you know that old fashioned do-hicky at the back of the door next to the window... yeah, that thing).
5. DO NOT touch any electronic lock device!!!
6. Close your door. Your system, if it's like mine, will not arm. Imagine that! A "bug" or undocumented feature in the Sable programming... thank goodness! I watched through the window and the THEFT light never came on and never started blinking. The intermittent alarm problem is solved with no money spent that I don't have.

Yes, I realize this was long and drawn out. I also know you can skip or rearrange some of the above steps. Yes, I could have said it all with one simple sentence, "Use the manual lock knobs to avoid arming your anti-theft alarm system and it will quit going off when ever it darn well wants to," but then you wouldn't have enjoyed knowing for sure your system is like mine before trying the solution that works for me.

Hope you at least enjoyed the read if this doesn't work on your Mercury Sable. I also hope I help someone else avoid the hassles and wasted time of my last three days.