It's too cold to be hot like this isn't it?

Question

Hey guys. As you know, it's been kinda cold over here in the Northeast, so I need to know why this happened. Monday I was driving my car, and everything was normal. I pulled into a Dunkin Donuts and went in for maybe 5 minutes with the car running. Well when I came out, my thermostat gauge was almost at the red line level! I got in my car and started driving ( it was about 20 something degrees out, and the radiator fan was on) figuring that the cold air would bring the temperature down. Well I still had about a mile left to drive to get to work, and the temp. gauge never went down! It's never done that before, and it hasn't happened since, even though it's been only almost 2 day, but why did it do this? To give you the specs on the car; it's a 97 Ford Contour with a 2.0 and 5 sp. manual. It has 206k miles on it, but I changed the engine out last year, so the engine has 69k miles on it. Any advice you guys give is appreciated.

wakawu · Accepted Answer

Well that could be a number of things that you need to get addressed immediately. Driving while the car is in the 'red' zone or very high temperature is not a very good idea for these modern engines. Most components are aluminum and they can not take the heat and tend to warp and you'll need expensive headgasket/engine block work.

Take it one at a time - check the coolant level when the car is parked and COOL. DO NOT OPEN THE RADIATOR CAP WHEN HOT. (Ford Contour doesn't have a radiator cap - I had that 2.0L model myself and it has a reservoir on the left hand side) Make sure it is up full and top it off so it reached the MAX COLD mark. If that's already at a good level then maybe your thermostat isn't opening and not letting coolant flow through. That's a $9 maintenance part and should be changed regularly anyway. Might as well try that out then bleed the coolant system after you are done.

Lastly - the worst thing that could have happened is your water pump gave out. Those 2.0L motors have a plastic water pump. I do not know why Ford thought that was a great idea - the replacement water pumps are aluminum or metal. If you see any coolant or water dripping out of the water pump weep hole then you have to replace that as well as the timing belt while you are in there. That's a lot of miles on the car by the way.. when was the last timing belt/water pump change?

Here are some links for coolant thermostat change -

Diagnose http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evpaTW2WJ5Y

ocularnervosa · Answer

Your engine thermostat is stuck and when your car gets hot it isn't channeling the water into your radiator to cool off. It's a simple repair but if you don't know about engines you'll need to have a mechanic fix it.

the_boy_toy · Answer

You should check the coolant level. If the coolant level is okay, I would suspect an electrical problem possibly with the coolant temperature sensor.

It's too cold to be hot like this isn't it?

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