Comments: 1-15, 16-30, 31-45, 46-55
When I first bought the car, it had a bad wheel bearing on the front passenger side. I had that fixed and the driver's side front wheel bearing went. Now less than a year later, the same wheel bearing on the passenger side is going again.
The first day I drove the car, the blower motor broke. There was a recall on this so I got it fixed.
The timing belt rattles horribly whether or not its cold. It's just worse when it is cold.
The engine light is on. I was told that it is the (EPR) Valve and the (EPR) sensor. I don't know exactly what (EPR) stands for, but it has something to do with the fuel. Now I did try to replace this, however, you need a wrench and its hard to figure out what size it is. Once you figure out the size wrench you need, you'll have to make sure it is short enough to be able to turn it. There isn't a lot of space to work. So that's still not fixed.
The oxygen sensor went bad as well.
The doors all creak really bad. WD-40 works for a short while, but it still comes back. Sometimes they are hard to open.
Gas door release quit working, I had to break it open, so now it doesn't close.
Trunk release doesn't work.
Turn signals keep going out.
Condensation inside headlights.
Seat belts fell apart in back seat. I have one back there that works.
Driver's seat doesn't lock fully, so it jiggles just a little bit.
When I try to back up, there is a horrific sound like the brakes are going to fall off.
It doesn't idle at a constant speed.
It tries to stall when you first drive the car.
This car constantly needs wheel alignments or it shakes between 55 and 70 miles per hour.
The tires do not wear evenly.
Temperature gage started reading high. I had it tested and the fan kicks on at the right temperature, but it didn't used to do that. I also replace the thermostat, but that didn't fix it.
Overall as a car it is very comfortable and rides well aside from the shaking. It handles well in the snow. Since I had a manual transmission, I didn't really have a problem with pick up. However that's after the first 5-10 min of driving. With all the things that have gone wrong with this car. I will never again buy a Ford. I am sure with my list of things that went wrong I am probably forgetting something. But, as you can see many people have had many problems with this car. It is quite possibly the worst car ever produced.
Quit Crying... Sounds like a lemon to me.
I believe that is an EGR (not EPR). EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation). 9 times out of 10 is the main reason for the Check Engine light to come on. A small bit of carbon causing the EGR vale not to close all of the way.
I think some of your problems have a commonality. I bet the uneven tire wear and shimmying is related to your bearing issues. The bearing shouldn't have gone out after only a year, you should go to a different mechanic. When the wheel assembly is put back together, it's important to tighten the locking nut to the correct torque and follow the manufacturers directions on backing off the nut. The bearings also need to be packed correctly. If the bearings are not packed, or are even slightly loose, you will get failure and shimmying, leading to uneven tire wear. Everybody since 1925 has complained about not having the right size wrench, so that's one where you just have to suck it up and deal with it if you want to replace this yourself. The brakes making a god-awful noise is a sign that you should remove the drums and inspect the pads because the brake shoe rivets are probably grinding into the metal. This is your fault, not the car's, because brakes wear out and need to be replaced on every car. In general, it sounds like you are not taking very good care of this car. Everybody periodically sprays WD-40 on their door hinges, trunk and hood latches, and gas cap door hinges. That's just a part of owning a car.
I think you need to stop wining about your car, and start taking care of it. It's not ford's fault that all this is happening to you, it's the owners fault. You should have made sure that everything was good before you bought it, and if it was, then you should have taken better care of it.
You're all giving Ford way too much credit. I own one of these magnificent wonders of engineering and there's more recalls on it than I've ever seen on any car. For one ALL ($2000 worth) of the wiring on these cars was recalled because in slightly humid, wet, or cold conditions, the wires crack and degrade causing shorts and fires. Besides this, there is two other recalls for components that show tendency to start fires. The doors creaking is very common, same with the gas cap and blower motor. I've also had to replace both wheel bearings along with the ball joints, but they haven't gone bad since. The thing with the temperature sensor happens on all Contours - they either read one extreme or the other - after replacing it twice, mine still reads sub-zero temperatures. The EGR valve always goes out along with the O2 sensors - it is easier to ignore the Check Engine light or reset the computer than to keep replacing them. You should all give this guy a break - every person who owns one of these has the same problems, regardless of how they've taken care of it.
I have recently aquired one of these contour mystery problem cars. For all purposes the car runs great and can move like no other 4 cyl I have ever owned. But the mysterious check engine light has left two different mechanics scratching their heads. The computer comes up with a O2 issues and that the car is running lean. the idle is rough and if the air is on it is rougher. my 1st mechanic thought to replace everything that was coded in the computer, $500 all, but the EGR valve. The 2nd mechanic re checked everything and the EGR valve, but the light is still on an when it wants to it runs fine, but other times its rough. I think this model was built in a plant over a ancient buriul ground and all of the cars are possesed. Nothing else makes sense.
I also own a 1996 ford contour and nearly everything this guy has listed has gone wrong with my car. I'm actually paying about $1900 to get the ball joints and wheel bairings replaced along with the water pump and timing belt. My doors creak and my engine light is on with the same EGR problem. The car is great besides the problems. This is also the second wheel bairing I have had to replace within a year.
I was fortunate enough (or perhaps not) to be given one of these cars. A couple of fellow students were returning home to Norway, and just gave me their 1996 Ford Contour to get rid of it. The car had trouble starting, and once it did, it would idle rough. If you pressed the accelerator, it would begin to stall. Once it warmed up a little, you could press it and nothing would happen for a second or two, then the engine would rev.
The first thing I noticed was that the wiring harness for the electronic fuel injection was a fire hazard. ALL of the insulation on the wiring had come off. Everything was short circuiting. I asked the dealership how much a replacement would cost. I laughed in the guy's face when he told me... $650!!!
I went across the street to Walmart, bought two rolls of 18 gauge wire and a roll of solder. I rewired the thing myself and it's just as good as new. Next came the fuel filter. It was horribly clogged so I replaced it. I also replaced the spark plugs as they looked like they needed to be changed out as well.
After all this, the car is still running very close to the way it was when I got it. When you first start it, it stalls if you press the accelerator, and once warm, it hesitates before revving. Once it's revving at around 3000 rpm, it seems as if it's missing.
Does anyone have an idea of what expensive part I need to replace to make this thing run right?
Thanks.
I purchased my Contour for 2800.00 and tripled the amount paid out in repairs.
I had 3 O2 sensors put on - blew them all immediately. Also had new 4 agr valves, and 2 air flow mass sensors to get rid of the humming sound. Well it won't work per Ford dealer. There is a specific part that the dealer has for 250.00 to get rid of the hum-vibration.
I also had my transmission rebuilt to get rid of the overdrive light that did work!
Had the fuel line replaced - that got rid of the leakage of fuel being dumped, and allowed for the car to become more efficient.
Had the wire harness unit replaced because it was all burned up later (found out there is a recall on it), and now I too have a rough idle at cold start, then as the car is running, it goes away. Well this is the intake manifold - I found mine warped.
If anyone has ever had their upper and lower gaskets replaced like me several times, if this is not torqued sequentially, it will warp the intake, and it won't get the proper air or fuel needed, which in turn causes a rough idle.
I am currently looking for a recall that was never announced for the humming sound and intake manifold on the engine, which is a Mazda engine if you have the V6.
I have put 4,000 into my Contour and currently it's in the shop now for the intake. I will let you know if it solves the rough idle problem.
It's me with the *free* car again... I got everything sorted with the EFI wiring, and Advance Auto was kind enough to do an OBD2 check for free. It turned out the Mass Airflow Sensor was bad. I replaced that.. at $100. I was still having a problem with overheating though.
I discovered that wiring for the elecrtic fan on the radiator was all cracked and short circuiting. I replaced all of this and it STILL won't come on when the car is beginning to overheat. There is no Check Engine light on. But I have to assume that it's something to do with a sensor gone bad. I'm drawing a line at replacing more sensors for this piece of junk. I'm just going to hot-wire the fan to the ignition switch so that whenever the engine is running, so is the cooling fan. I really miss the old days when they used engine driven fans.
Oh, and for those naysayers out there... there most certainly IS something wrong with the wiring of these cars. The entire wiring harness is cracked all to hell. There are bits of wiring insulation all over the place. This car is a rolling fire hazard and how Ford managed to get a limited recall on it instead of a LIFETIME recall... I will never know. I can only assume that somebody important in Government Safety got their pockets filled with enough cash to allow them to pull that off. In any case, Ford will never get another penny from me!
Continuing the saga of the *free* car... I finally found the problem with the fan. A sensor that was not listed in the Haynes manual was bad. It was located upside down under the water intake below the coolant temperature gauge sensor. Once I got that sorted, the P.O.S. started to leak a bit of oil. And when it was in park idling it was fine. But if you put it in drive and hold the brake and let it idle, you better hang on to something because it will shake you to death! I finally gave up on proper mechanics to fix this. So I got a split-shot sinker for fishing line, and clipped it onto the throttle cable where it curves over the throttle pulley at the butterfly valve. This raised the cable off of the pulley by about 1mm which in turn opened the butterfly by about 1/2mm. It raised the idle rpm by about 50-75 rpm. And when you put it in drive and hold the brake, the rpm is just high enough to stop the shaking! The problem is solved and the total cost of it was an astonishing $1.
Are you sure you Wired the Fan Correctly? It is very easy to rip out old Wires and then connect the New lines up again the other way round.
I have a stick shift 95 Contour. The rear tires's wheel bearings are bad and make a humming noise. The car runs fine although the air conditioning is shot due to wiring problems not worth fixing. What should I be concerned about with regards to the wheel bearings if I continue to drive the car without fixing the wheel bearings?
I have a 96 Contour 2.0 4 cyl.
Picked it up for what I thought was cheap...
1,000 put new tires and ball joints on it...
A month or so later timing belt went...
Replaced that... well the whole timing belt kit... I'd consider that pretty normal wear and tear for the most part...
The check engine light has been on since the day I bought the car...
Always idled horrible, but I pretty much have used it for a work car... I drive about a 100 miles round trip and 99% highway, so the idle never bothered me.
Air works great etc...
I'm to the point where I have no more room to park, so I figured the Contour was going to leave...
I wanted the check engine light off, so I put the O2 sensor in it, and reset the computer with the scanner... what do you know, light back on O2 sensor lean bank 1... daaaa 4 cyl. sensor 1...
My mechanic is family and we have reset this car a few times in the past, cause the 02 sensor had already been repaced... and he's not a backyard mechanic, he's Master ASE certified, not a Ford mechanic though, Dodge...
His personal snap scanner we have been using on the car says that the O2 sensor was recalled because the wire was too short when the engine was under acceleration.. Since we changed the O2 sensor, we were wondering if anyone else tried this road? The connector for the O2 sensor is secure... if the wire was too short, could it have have pulled out of the actual computer? And is that the reason for people trying to fix these things forever with no success?
He has friends at the Ford dealer beside his dealership, and is going there tommorrow to try to get proved wrong.
We've searched the car high and low for a vacuum leak... haven't found a one... and if you look at the scanner, this code, well at least mine is always tripped when the car is around 200 degrees, 3200 rpm, and around 42 ish miles an hour... So the scanner says.
I think a lot of people have spent a lot of money tring to fix this problem with no luck... there's got to be a simple solution. But all you that have a good scanner should be able to see that O2 sensor was recalled cause the wire was to short... I really think the connector would not give... just curious if anyone explored this?
I can see how all of this can be frustrating.