I don't know that it is really so much that the Zetect tends to run hot, as that the temperature gauge tends to read high at the temperature at which the Zetec normally runs. It doesn't appear to me that the gauge is a very precise instrument. When I got my Mystique, the gauge nearly always pointed straight up once the engine was up to normal temperature, and stayed there most of the time. OBD??II readings, which come from an entirely different sensor, showed that the temperature nearly always stayed very close to 192° F.
Then my gauge stopped working. I had to replace the sensor. Ever since I replaced the sensor, the temperature gauge now usually reads between A and L. The OBD??II reading still shows the temperature to be around 192° F. It isn't that my engine now runs hotter (it doesn't). It's just that the gauge now reads higher, at the same actual temperature.
I very much suspect that it is for very similar reasons that most Zetecs are thought to ??run hot?.
