Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting sad girl/temp gauge prob/can't put in park

Please help me. I have a 98 Tour auto zetec, bought from a dealer (BAD IDEA i had to replace the tranny 2mo after i bought it)hi miles 150K. The temp gauge on dash is reading hot, but the car itself is running ok, not overheating(to my knowledge)the heat is working fine. I have been asked if i ccan hear the/a fan running, but i dont know. I saw another post with this prob, but i couldn't understand any of it. I just got an oil change two weeks ago, and I topped off coolant about two days later. I have heard something about sensors, and other stuff about plastic fans. Any ideas,or suggestions? I also have issues with putting my car in park. The shifter gets stuck. I have been keeping it in neutral with the parking brake on. I have heard cylanoid head (what the heck is that?) or security features on the car. I dont have the owners manual, so i cant look it up. Please someone help this poor girl who knows nothing about cars!!! ps despite the issues with my car I love it.

Hi! Welcome to CEG.

One problem at a time:

- Temperature gauge: There is a sensor on the engine that tells the gauge how hot your engine is. That sensor may have failed. The sensor isn't terribly expensive and is usually easy to replace. However, if your car really is overheating, it could damage the engine. The heater in the car will still work, even if the car is overheating, so that isn't a good test.

- You have an electric fan right behind the radiator that helps cool the engine. It doesn't run all of the time - a sensor tells it when to turn on and off, depending on how hot the engine is. It isn't very hard to check the fan. If it isn't working correctly, it could be either the fan itself or the sensor.

- You mentioned topping off coolant. Has the coolant level changed since then? If you're consistently adding coolant to keep the level within the normal range, you have a leak somewhere. A coolant leak that doesn't create puddles on the ground could be a head gasket failure (expensive and lots of work to repair). Do you know when the coolant was last changed? If not, get the engine coolant system flushed and filled.

- Shifter: There is a solenoid that prevents you from moving the shifter lever *out* of park unless the brake pedal is pushed. However, I haven't heard of the solenoid preventing the shift leverl from going back *into* park. I'd be more suspicious that something is wrong with the linkage that connects your shift lever to the transmission. Did this problem appear about the same time your transmission was replaced?

My suggestion? Do some reading on the topics I've mentioned, then find a reputable, local shop that will look at each problem independently and help you understand what's really going on - and the best way to repair it. If you aren't comfortable with what they're telling you, or how they're treating you, find another shop.

Best wishes! Enjoy driving your Contour!

a bad temp sender unit seams to be common among zetecs engins my engin runs at just short of the red area. but infact it is not overheating. if you think your car is over heating go and buy a cooking theromomotor(sp). slowly remove the lid on the coolent tank(it is the large one on the passenger side near the frunt) stick the theromoter in and see what it reads. as for not having a car manual go to this site ford fleet select maintenance and then select owner manuals. enter the year and model of your car and u can download one.

I'm sorry, but you didn't just HONESTLY suggest that this woman open a hot, PRESSURIZED cooling system, did you?





Ray

This will be long. The plastic fan bit relates to the water pump that pumps the coolant throughout your car's cooling system. It has what is called an impeller (Like fan blades) and in the Contour it is made of plastic. For some odd reason, Ford decided to be cheap (What a surprise) and used a weak plastic impeller, and the blades would break. No impeller means very little coolant circulation if at all. The big problem people have is that it's very had to diagnose because these things don't usually happen to normal cars. It mainly happens on Duratecs, but I imagine the Zetec has the same impeller. Someone can chime in on that.

It's quite obvious when a car is overheating to me. Whenever my girlfriend's Caprice would over-heat, there would be a nice cloud of steam rising from the motor. Took me forever to find the source. Found out that the thermostat was bad and that caused the intake manifold gasket to break.

Overheating is usually a bad thermostat. This piece starts off closed to keep the coolant re-circulating throughout the engine to help heat the motor up quickly, and then it opens around 180 degrees to let the very warm coolant filter into the radiator (Note the coolant has only been circuling through the engine block where it cannot cool down) where it will be cooled off before entering the motor again.

Your fan helps the radiator cool the coolant down by blowing air over the radiator fins. Rear-drive cars usually have the fan directly attached to the motor (Because the engine is pointed from front to back, not sideays like in your car the fan can directly attach to the crankshaft of the motor. This crankshaft is what is being turned by the pistons) and there is usually a viscous "clutch" to either let the fan slip when temperatures are cold, or it will attach the fan directly to the motor and it will spin.

Unless you're driving a Chrysler LHS car in which the engine is in fact front to back but the car is front-drive, there is no simple way to attach the fan to the crankshaft since it is pointing towards the side of the car. I have never seen a car with fans on the sides of the car. In this case, the fan has a seperate electric motor to drive it. This is controlled by the car's computer brain (PCM) and switched on when the temperature rises above a certain level. Sometimes the fan does not turn on, or the coolant sensor goes bad. All you need to do is open the hood and switch on the air conditioner. The AC system automatically turns the fan on no matter what. If it doesn't turn on...we got a problem.

Letting your engine over-heat is NOT a good thing. You need to find out what's wrong quickly. If you really must drive with it like this, turn your heater on full blast. The heater core will bring the hot air into your car from the engine. Just make sure your windows are down and the vents are pointed outside the car...driving like this in the middle of 100 degree sunny weather was not fun at all. Don't let this happen to you!

And about the inability to shift out of park. I think what she means is that she can't shift OUT of park, so she leaves it in neutral. There is a small black "box" on top of your brake pedal. It's very easy to see from inside the car if you bend down and look up at it. One went bad in my mom's Taurus, but it's very cheap to get a new one. The brake lights probably don't work do they? I belive the cruise control also will not work.