Gary (208.73.198.117) - Thu Oct 23 15:55:04 2008

Car funs great, then the overdrive light starts to flash for no reason and the transmission begins to shift with a jerk. Any Ideas?

Reply #1 Danielle (72.20.221.253) - Mon Mar 23 00:15:34 2009

I have a 4 cyl. 96 Contour with the same problem. Have you checked your tranny fluid? That did a little help with the shifting with mine. You might also want to think about getting a new transmission. I'm getting one put in soon by my dad. You can get ones in a junk yard for like a hundred bucks. Just before you buy one, make sure you can get it tested. You walk out with it, often times you can't take it back. If you can't do the work, as long as you have the tranny, most garages will only charge labor. It can get expensive, but changing a tranny isn't an easy job. If you don't wnat to get into that much work, it might be easier to get rid of the car. I just have a dad that loves my "tinker toy" as he calls it and he always does my work on my car.

Good luck.

Danielle

Reply #2 Justin Bellmore (68.40.48.100) - Thu Apr 9 11:38:47 2009

I have a 1996 Ford Contour with a V6 that was doing the same exact problem driving down the road and the overdrive light would flash on and off, I took it to the trans. shop and they said it was something within the wiring harness causing it to short out, and would cost $1200 to replace the whole wiring harness. They by-passed the problem by wrapping a ground wire around the wiring harness. Worked fine for awhile, but still acts up again, so back to square one sounds like its a common problem with this type of car.

Reply #3 Jim Rahrig (151.132.106.199) - Mon May 11 12:00:39 2009

The CD4E automatic is a weak point on the Contour/Mystique/Cougar. The symptoms you describe suggest the transmission is overheating due to the torque converter refusing to lock at cruise.

First: Get the Check Engine Light (CEL) code(s) read at an auto parts store. Write down the codes and perform a SEARCH for those codes on Goggle or newcougar.org.

Perform a few 4 qt drain & fills on your transmission one weekend. It may help and will cost little to try.

Reply #4 erika (76.234.161.46) - Sun Sep 13 10:11:22 2009

Thought this might be helpful to you. Maybe Shawn can take the car to one of the auto parts stores and have them test it

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