Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting temp gauge problem or overheat?

I have a 99 SVT with 102k miles. I recently replaced my waterpump after it failed and overheated. I got off the road withing 30 seconds of the gauge spiking and didnt end up causing any real damage. Anyways since the overheat my temp gauge has been spiking up a lot and the past couple days it has spiked up and stayed up. I have taken the car to the shop where the waterpump was replaced for the second time now and they told me that the temp is actually at 219 when it gets into red. They want 300 bucks to replace the stock one and i just received a set of aftermarket gauges i will be installing sometime soon (this shop wont install them). My questions are is 219 degrees a safe operating temp and are the stock gauges known to fail after overheating? Would i be safe going on another set of gauges and leaving the stock one broken?

The gauge isn't the problem. 219 deg. doesn't seem awfully high considering that your stock thermostat is 190 deg.. The cooling fan doesn't come one until about 240 deg (if I remember correctly). There is also a possibility of an air bubble in the system, but that should eventually work its way out. I would replace the gauge sending unit. It is not the same as the coolant temp sensor. The gauge sender is only for the gauge. It is about $15.00 and is the small one with the single post that is right about under the throttle body on the hose spout. While you're at it I would replace the thermostat with a 180 deg. one. That is also easy to replace and is right there by the temp gauge sender. I run the 180 on the Duratecs with no noticable loss of heat here in the northeast winters.

Change your thermostat and see if this solves your problem. Overheating sometimes causes the thermostat to stick.

low cooling fan kicks on at 216-217 degrees and the high cooling fan kicks on at 225-226 degrees. I know this from changing my thermo recently and had a computer hooked to the car to watch the temp. after i changed my thermo., i would have the temp gauge go up on me from time to time because of air bubbles left in the system, they will work themselves out or you can do it while the car is parked by just reving the car up from the throtle, i found that if you watch your overflow tank while reving the car up, you will start to see some bubbles come up from the bottom of the tank. have someone sit in your car and watch the gauge so they can shut it off if it gets into the red. also remember, the system is very big so there can be more bubbles in the system than you think, i sat for 2 hours reving the car periodically for about a min or so each time to get the bubbles out. also, your car should run at about 198-204 range. also, what is cosing you $300 to replace, the gauge or the WP?

I had the same worries. Relax, it's just air in the system. My temp guage spiked to the r and m of normal, and since I've let it do it's thing, the needle now resides on O of Normal.