Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Car is acting VERY strange lately

OK, my wife was driving the car (98 SVT) the other day and all of a sudden the speedo starts going crazy, jumping up to 160 and back to 20 then up to around 140 again and back down. At the same time, the Tach starts to die out to nothing. after a few minutes of this, the car dies and won't restart (it would turn over fine). She sat there for about 45 min and eventually the car restarted like nothing happend. Does anyone know what might have caused this? Could it be sometihng with the speedo sensor? Don't know if that would cause the car to die, but I have heard that they fail often in higher milage 'tours. (mine has 116K)

Thanks,
Brad

Two things I can think of...Alternator, maybe, or...This has happened to a few people, and has no explanation, and never reoccured. Seriously, it's like a phantom problem...I'm sure there may be other explanations, but, it's been known to happen.

my dad's liberty did that same exact thing with the speedo, but the car never died. was the speedo sensor i think...

I would bet good money that it is the alternator. I had one die EXACTLY like that. All the weird stuff. Parked it for a while and then it was ok.
Erik

Im going to go with a charging system issue as well. A bad/loose ground perhaps. That would explain it acting up and then not doing it again later. Sounds like exactly what mine did when my battery died. The car thought it was doing 130 but the engine wasnt even running. Probably put five miles on the car with it never leaving the driveway. The wipers cycled once and all was done.

I do know that some of the guages will freak out if they lose their ground. The temp guage, for example will peg on hot if its ground is loose.

New battery and all was good, and has been for years since.

Well, I replaced the Alt. about 6 months ago, so it "should" be ok. But the car still would turn over fine, just wouldn't run. As far as the Crankshaft sensor, how hard is that to change and is it expensive? I may have to look into that some more.

Thanks,
Brad

Crankshaft Position Sensor 2.5L $26.54

It does not look to hard to replace. It is located near the crank shaft on the radiator side. You just need to unplug it and remove two bolts, slip in the new one rebolt it and plug it in and you are done.

All Tachs get their info from the CKP sensor. It is a common problem with SHOs and your description of the problem sounds exactly the same.

My 99 contour died this same way last June. It was definatly an alternator issue. The alternator is in a bad location and tends to get salt in it. My alternator was highly carroded on the contacts and eventually started to burn up do to the fact there was arching from the lack of pick up points. The car restarted after jumping and ran fine, but after running tests from the ford service manual I foudn out it was the alternator. To determine if this is truely your problem also, ask your wife if she noticed other warning lights blinking. Mine first started going with the air bag light blinking, then the abs, then collant, then the tach went and last the speedo, minute later just stalled and I was stuck on teh side of the road.

Hope this gives you some insight
-Greg