1999 Ford Contour

LX Sedan

4 Cylinder 2.0 Liter

Automatic

1fafp65z0xk162537

CNG

Air Conditioning

This vehicle runs on either natural gas or gasoline. I have been driving it for two years on primarily natural gas. Transmission FailingIt has a failing automatic transmission. It has a diagnostic trouble code P1744 which indicates that the Torque Converter Clutch (TCC) has excessive slip. This shows up as a speed flare on the second to third gear upshift. The only reasonable conclusion is that the transmission is in need of a rebuild or a replacement. About MyselfI am a Ford Engineer who is intrigued with natural gas vehicles. To get some experience with natural gas vehicles, I bought three of them two years ago. I have this 1999 Contour Bi-Fuel, a 1999 F250 dedicated-CNG, and a 2004 F150 Bi-fuel. I fuel at home with a FuelMaker for $1.25 per Gallon Gasoline Equivalent (GGE). It costs me on average $0.28 in electricity to compress each GGE of natural gas. Let me say that a modern natural gas vehicle drives exactly the same as a gasoline vehicle. Eleven year old CNG vehicles drive like eleven year old gasoline vehicles. I have quite a bit of CNG experience after living with CNG for two years. The real beauty of CNG comes when you start fueling at home. After the convenience of fueling at home, you are spoiled forever. You will never want to go to a gasoline station again. Before I got my Home Refueling Appliance (HRA), I used the local CNG stations in Michigan ($1.95 per GGE). I am ready to move on to a current model year Ford CNG converison. Altech-Eco has the lowest cost EPA certified conversions and I intend to buy one of those. But first, I need to sell my Contour to its next owner. The Compuvalve StoryExcept for the 2003.5 and 2004 F150, all 1997 to 2004 bi-fuel Fords had a device called the Compuvalve. It is actually a natural gas continuous flow device and not a natural gas injector. All current CNG cars everywhere in the world use one CNG injector per cylinder. The Compuvalve device gave good performance but it has since developed a reputation for failures and expensive repair. A new Compuvalve is reportedly $2000 but I don't know if that includes installation. This Contour has a working Compuvalve which is worth 600 to 1000 dollars by itself. The advantage of buying the car for the Compuvalve alone is that it is provably functioning because it is installed in the car. I can show you by the lack of AFCM codes that it is working perfectly. (The Compuvalve is known to the scan tool as the "Alternate Fuel Control Module".) The car has some other deficiencies like only one of the 4 radio speakers still works, the dome light does not work reliably form the dome switch, baseball sized rust hole in rocker panel, lots of scratches, etcetera. The car is not perfect but if you have an economical way of doing a transmission rebuild or replacement, it would be a low cost way to experiment with natural gas vehicles. Call me at 313-562-4797. Don't call after 9:30 pm Eastern Time.