My husband and I just recently bought a 2004 Ford Focus SE 2.0 Dual Head Overcam 16v from a private party. When we were out today it started overheating. It doesn't seem to be leaking anything and the fans don't seem to be kicking on at all. Was told by previous owner that the fans were just replaced. My husband is going to try to figure it out tomorrow. Any tips on where to start?

 

Thermostat, fan switch, fan relay. feel the radiater when the engines warm is it cold?

 

The radiator is boiling hot. You can see the water basically boiling and steaming in the overflow tank. It has plenty of fluid but it does look like it needs to be drained and replaced.

 

How hot is it where you are ?, were you sat in traffic ?, the fans are most definitely needed on the focus, if stuck put on air con and heater on hot and full with fan heater, you'll get nice and hot but helps the engine.
All of this shouldn't be necessary of course, if you disconnect the ECU temp sender from the thermostat housing with the ignition turned on the fans should come on, as this is a default setting in the ecu, if it doesn't then look at the fans wiring etc first.
Even with fully working thermostat if the engine needs additional cooling from the fans and doesn't get it it will over heat.
Most likely suspects are the fans or the thermostat being at fault.
tabetha

 

First off it's not a SE, it will be a Zetec-E, this engine is completly different from the SE and is fitted to the 1.4 and 1.6 varients.

From experience the Focus fans rarely come on, I have only ever had them come on a hot day when stuck in heavy traffic and even then it was not until I was nearly out of it.

In any case the fans should only activate when this is insufficent natural airflow, i.e when in traffic, they should never come on whilst moving, they should activate when you switch the A/C on.

The Focus has a CHT which on your model is screwed into the back of the cylinder head, nearest the timing belt end and below the inlet manifold, it is NOT on the thermostat housing, this provides info on temperature to the ECU and also the temp gauge and also activates the fans in turn if hot enough.

A little bit of geek info as well here, if it gets to hot it has an over heating strategy where by it will shut fuelling off to two cylinders and so allow them to act as air pumps and thus save further heat output, so if you get a loss of power don't worry it's not something else thats wrong, I guess you haven't hit that high a temp yet otherwise you would have experienced this.

I do agree though thermostat (Stuck closed) or fans depending on whether you were stuck in traffic etc at the time.

Martin