Four problems related to defogger heater have been reported for the 1998 Ford Contour. The most recently reported issues are listed below.
The heater worked intermittently.
The heater was inoperative.
Parts are unavailable to complete recall01v230000 for heater blower resistor due to parts being unavailable. Also , when the heater is on air does not get hot. Please provide further details.
Heater operates intermittent, visual inspection shows wire connector and resistor pack melted. Ford refuses to correct problem under the extended warranty, and Ford motor company does not appear to want to get involved. I now find several other instances of this problem, and have never been notified. My wife drives this car, and this could have caused a fire, since my wife has the grandchildren with her an injury or death could have ocurred. The aggrevation comes from Ford and the dealers with the "so what attitude" about my having to pay for the repairs and then see the warranty company about getting paid, and the fact that they never bothered to tell me about the problem, safety bulletin recalls 99m07 and 99m08. I have to find this out myself? looking through the data, seems Ford has an electrical problem with this car, and are not fixing it, more than one report of dashboard fires, cars blowing up when starting, etc.