Ah my biggest gripe about Contours: they shove the alternator way down at the bottom where its difficult to get to. My chevy has the alternator up top and very accessible (not to mention a heck of a lot cheaper). I'm not sure if the contour is the same, but the cable that hooked to my alternator in the chevy got corroded and majorly increased the resistance between it and the battery, thus killing the battery. I had to use a dremel to get the corrosion off.
