2000 Ford Ranger: engine overheating

Filed Nov 6, 2015 · Engine · 70,000 miles · FL

The engine was 'not right' one day so the hood was opened in the bank parking lot and it appeared to be overheated. The temperature gage did not indicate this but the radiator was indeed without water. The radiator was filled and later checked out at the shop. It was determined that the temperature gage was not accurate and an external gage was added (a separate gage not part of the dashboard). The engine was never the same and has since needed to be replaced (with a remanufactured) due to being overheated. This was preventable if the temperature sensor had been operating properly. It was not broken (ie registered zero all the time), it was . . Bad or wrong sensor for the gage? Don't know really. The vehicle had less than 90000 miles.

Filed Aug 25, 2008 · Engine · 81,000 miles · CA

I bought a 2000 ford ranger. I have kept the all the upkeeps for this car and more according to the ford dealers instruction manual for the ford ranger truck. It has about 81000 miles on it. I recently had to pay $2300.00 to the kearny mesa ford to fix my car. I do have the cruise control on it. One day, I smelled antifreeze. My heat gadget did not go off. There was no indication that the truck was overheating, but I chose to bring it in. I thought it was probably a leak in a hose. It turned out the a heating element was "probably the culprit", but they found through their computers that the engine had to basically be rebuilt because the engine had overheated. My concern was that not once did my heating gauge tell me that the truck was overheating. That is dangerous. I do not know if this is connected to the cruise control problem, but for a heating gauge to not go off when there is sever heat going on in the engine is dangerous. I could have gotten stranded in a dangerous place or the engine may have exploded on the freeway with the enormous damage that took place. I thought this needed to be reported. Ford couldn't tell me why the heating gauge did not work. They told me that now and then even trucks that are kept up go wrong. That is not a good answer when this could have caused a serious accident.

Filed May 8, 2008 · Engine · 80,000 miles · AZ

Ford 4.0l engine head gasket leakage, cause overheating of rings, cracked head, one new head, one rebuilt, without any over-temp indication. I could smell a slight odor of burned water for over 1 year, while never finding a leak. This expenditure of about $2k did not fix the problem, now I have relaxed rings, poor, but not bad compression, and use lots of oil, when I've babied this engine, done all my own work, and oil changes, and had less than 90,000 miles. This lack of power, then sudden decrease in compression caused the engine to buck severely, pointing me in all kinds of fuel and electrical areas of maintenance. At the same time, the check engine light came on, but would not allow me or anyone's code reader to read the problem... This lack of compression and engine demise came on unexpectedly, suddenly, and without notice over a one to two week period. A local autoshop owner of 35 years told me there was a service bulletin out on the head gasket, but as yet I have not found it. At present, after two heads were replaced, I can drive the vehicle, but cannot depend on low oil consumption... I never had any oil consumption problem before this event.

Filed May 15, 2003 · Electrical · 39,000 miles · TX · fire

The positive wire connected to the alternator of a 2000 ford ranger with 39000 miles burned causing a fire. According to ford, something in the alternator system failed causing the alternator to continuously charge the battery until the wiring overheated, shorted out, sparking a fire. There was no notification of a problem prior to the engine compartment fire. After contacting ford's consumer complaint system, ford declined to resolve the problem to my satisfaction. They basically washed their hands of the issue stating it was not a ford design problem and that I could not elevate the problem to any other level within ford.

Filed Aug 2, 2000 · Suspension · CA

Tire overheats under normal driving condition, uneven tread wear, dealer states that is normal. *ak( dot number: tire size: p225/70rs )