I think it is a check engine light...

[Nattachance]

On my 99 Mercury Cougar I have the light which looks like an engine it is located on the dash at the bottom left hand corner. I think I had bad gas but I put a fuel treatment in my tank and my car started running as good as new.... But the light never went off..... Is there a way to reset it or how can I fix that problem?

[misst3quila]

Yeah mine is still doing this..I was thinking of taking it to the Mercury shop but they charge way to much.

[jakewolfe]

to clear the light you should be able to disconnect the possitve battery cable and press the brake to completly drain the power.

i have gotten a number of these cougar in the shop just find that the pcv tube is leaking, or a spark plug wire is pre grounding

[pss5075104]

thanks alot for the info jakewolf my wifes 99 cougar's check engine light came on about 4 weeks ago and the car runs fine.

[sare]

My check engine light has been on for two years. Mine eventually lead to bad O2 sensor and a bad torque converter in the transmission. My tranny finally went out about about a month ago and I had it replaced. I am going to work on the O2 sensor here soon.

You can always take your car to Auto Zone for a free scan to see what code your car is throwing to cause the engine light. When they give you the code go to the link below and see what you have.

OBD II- Codes

hope this helps.

Sarah

[dafeesh]

fixed my check engine light yesterday, it had been on for ever and nothing seemed to fix it. I took it to auto zone and they ran the diagnostic and told me it was the egr valve, so i took it off and it wasn't clogged or anything. My father bought a snap on diagnostic on ebay and we ran it yesterday. I turns out that my IMRC was stuck closed. That is the Intake Manifold Runner Control, forgive me if i screw up on one of those letters or mis-speak, my dads the car guy, i'm just trying to help here. Anyway it turns out that 3 of my cylinders werent getting half of the air they should have at higher rpms. 7 bucks at the ford parts department, and i got a new nylon bushing to reconect the linkage to the valve and the check engine light goes out and I get a faster car. Turns out that my cougar hasnt been running on full power since i got it, and now its pretty fun to drive. Sorry for the long arse post.

[sare]

My cougars going into the shop in a couple of weeks to have a vaccum leak and O2 sensors replaced. hopefully this corrects it enough to get me through echeck.

if those dont work i am going to try your way and see if it works.

Sarah

[auburn06]

Mine goes on and off all the time. Sometimes I think it's different gas I buy. Or is this really something to be concerned about?

[beyondloadedSE]

Originally Posted by dafeesh

fixed my check engine light yesterday, it had been on for ever and nothing seemed to fix it. I took it to auto zone and they ran the diagnostic and told me it was the egr valve, so i took it off and it wasn't clogged or anything. My father bought a snap on diagnostic on ebay and we ran it yesterday. I turns out that my IMRC was stuck closed. That is the Intake Manifold Runner Control, forgive me if i screw up on one of those letters or mis-speak, my dads the car guy, i'm just trying to help here. Anyway it turns out that 3 of my cylinders werent getting half of the air they should have at higher rpms. 7 bucks at the ford parts department, and i got a new nylon bushing to reconect the linkage to the valve and the check engine light goes out and I get a faster car. Turns out that my cougar hasnt been running on full power since i got it, and now its pretty fun to drive. Sorry for the long arse post.

I know this post is extremely old and it was brought up, but I would just like to clarify for future reference.

If your IMRC isnt opening, then the secondaries are going to be closed for all 6 of your cylinders, not just 3. I bet you were probably only making about 90 whp or so with them closed.

Just so you have a picture of what the IMRC is and what it does, its the silver box located on the front valve cover. Chances are you have a plastic cover over it that says 2.5L duratec. But if you were to remove it, this is what it look look like.

Picture of IMRC on Cougar/Contour duratec engine


The IMRC is controlled by the car's pcm and tells it when to operate. At wide open throttle the IMRC turns on and and pulls on the linkage to open the secondary butterflies at 3250 rpms. At less than WOT, it opens at 3750. These help give the car more low end torque to get the car moving. So what do these secondaries look like?

The secondaries are located in the lower intake manifold of the engine. As you can see the LIM (lower intake manifold) has primary and secondary ports. The secondaries are what have the butterfly valves and whats controlled by the IMRC.

LIM


Primary and Secondary port