Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Duratec Maintenance computer reset

Helped a buddy out the other day with his 99 mercury cougar.

He had over 60k on it without ever being serviced. Had been having the oil changed though.

Mine's a 98 svt so I'm real familiar with his motor. I took the battery out, and removed the intake so I could clean the throttle body. Took his nasty plugs out and used a little anti-sieze and torqed down 6 new ones. Changed his wires while I was at it (stock wires). Used some throttle body cleaner and went in through the vacumme lines and let a little drain thru, slowly of course. The rest we put in the tank.

Took it out for a spin and he said it ran noticably better. Alot more pep and much smoother. No problems. Piece of cake.

The next morning, he throws a CEL.

Here's what I'm curious about. When I put everything back together, his radio presets were still there. Did his computer not reset? No doubt the CEL is from the computer seing the work I did. But everything went real well with no problems, and the car's running great. How do I reset the damn thing? Is there a fuse combo I can pull like our cars? Preciate it.

Not too sure, but you get the same results from pulling the neg. battery cable for about 20 min. Oh, I just saw you removed the battery while doing the work...Did you put the battery back in after you were done with everything? If so, that'sa ll that can be done, and you messed something up. Get the code checked. If you're not in CA, Autozone checks codes for free.

The stock radio does not lose it's presets. They are flashed into some type of eprom when you set them.

I find it odd that most aftermarket radios do not do this with their countless settings yet the OEM radios do. You would think the aftermarket radios would be better on all counts or at lest equal if they could be.