Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting overheating

saturday morning i noticed the temp. gauge was reading the car was running a little hot. i did not drive the car again until saturday night when the gauge was reading right to the max. the a/c was not on and the temperature outside was cool. both fans were running so fast i could hear them from inside the car. i was only a couple of blocks from home, so i turned on the heat and headed back. the engine was not pinging and did not feel all that hot when i parked in the garage. i am hoping it is only the thermostat, but i can see from doing a search of the problems fourm, that it may be the water pump. i flushed the system last summer and the car only has 75000 easy kilometre's on it. does this sound like a pump?

Most likely, especially if your cabin heat was not very hot. The waterpump will circulate heated engine water through the cabin heater when it's turned on. The waterpump part is less that $100 and can be replaced with basic hand tools. It's in a somewhat unusual place, which seems to baffle shops that have not done this work before, but it is very accessible. $100 bucks for labor would be reasonable, but most places will charge more I think there is a how to in the FAQ or how to section if your handy with tools.

water pump. Had a same problem. If you hear fans working, then thermostat is fine.

I Concur.. same lessons learned..

(man I really DO apreciate the speed at which we can help each other out on here...)

if the primary and secondary fans are running, would that not mean the thermostat is stuck and the coolant temperature is too high?

It's your water pump. I just had this same problem two weeks ago with my Mystique. At around 60,000 miles the pump dies on these cars.

My temp gauge was higher then normal so I then checked under the hood. The engine felt cool to the touch and I thought this was really odd! I then got back in the car and drove it about 2 miles. Another thing I noticed was the heater was not as hot as normal. I came to a stop and then noticed there was no heat and watched the Temp gauge plummet completely past the red mark. I freaked out!!! Both fans were screaming!!!

I turned the car off because I knew this was not good. After calling AAA and having the car towed 41 miles to my Ford Dealership they explained what the problem was.

The Water Pump died... then the Thermostat decided to join it. It's a good thing I didn't drive it any further because of the damage which can occur to the heads. The Dealership replaced the Pump, Thermostat, Upper Radiator Hose and a heat sensor - No Charge to me!

Ford is aware the pumps on these cars suck (due to they made them from plastic) and will pay for all of this if you have a decent dealership that will work with you and your mileage is around the 60,000 mile range.

Oh, replace it with an "Aluminum Pump"... it'll last much longer.

Eurythmian

fordsdad...could be. Maybe that's his problem. But i had this problem couple of months ago, and it was water pump. I changed the thermostat, but no..wasn't a problem.
I had no heat inside the car, which means the water/coolant is not circulating. It is plugged somewhere...and most likely, it is the pump. Sometimes you wont get leaks from the pump...dont know why, but mine never leaked. I remember, everything was working fine..and i punched it down a little bit, went around 5k rpm, and after couple of minutes, it overheated. no leaks, just no heat in the car.
maybe it wasn't the waterpump...maybe those ***holes on the dealer lied to me.
you never know (

i do get heat from the vents, so i am hoping its just the thermostat. i wanted to use a ford part, but it is backordered two days out of edmonton, alberta. i am in vancouver, british columbia.

Hi,
I am in Surrey BC as well and just last week replaced my pump as well. Do not get the FORD replacement , its the same plastic impeller that you have.
I searched in Canada till I was blue looking for the steel impeller unit. If you do a search on this site you will see how BAD the ford new and replacement pump is.
All the local parts places here said they could get the steel unit, but when ordered it was the same plastic unit everyone says to avoid.
I finally got one in Bellingham NAPA, and by the time I paid the duty and taxes it was $ 38.00 less than the plastic one. It took me less than 2 hours to install, and I am not a mechanic.
I have the phone number / address for Napa Bellingham and the part # is DWP125-1910, they happened to have it in stock last week, and may have another, these are brand new units not rebuilt!!!
Look me up in the phone book in Surrey Patrick Kramer on 107A Ave.

Don't use the Ford Replacement!!!

Go with the one from NAPA - it's Aluminum.

Eurythmian