2002 Ford Focus - Unexplainable Overheating

Ok So here is the Car specs:

2002
Ford
Focus
Engine Size: 2.0
95000

Ok, so about a month ago, our car overheated. It got pretty hot because it happened really fast. One of the coolant tubes had burst and all the coolant had leaked out. We towed it over to the mechanic and they fixed the tube and did a engine block test to see if any damage had been done to the engine. It passed the engine block test, so we took the car home. It seemed fine for short drives, but it would start to overheat after about 15 minutes. This usually happened when we were driving on city roads with a lot of stop lights. It would usually happen when we were at a stoplight. On the freeway, it was less likely to start overheating after 15 minutes. So we brought it back in and they tried to figure out the problem, but because they were unable to replicate the overheating while in the shop, they were unable to diagnose the problem. So they gave it back to us. That night, the tube that they had replaced came loose and coolant once again started spewing out while we were driving it. So the next day we brought it back to the mechanic again. It seems that they put the tube on incorrectly, because once they redid it, that tube has been fine. But the car is still overheating. We've brought the car into the mechanic two times since and they haven't been much help. They found some corrosion on one of the fans and cleaned that up to see if the fan was stopping, causing the car to overheat. But that didn't do anything. So finally I made them do another engine block test to see if the engine had been damaged SINCE the first time it overheated. Still came up good.

Their best guess was that there was a small amount of damage done to the head gasket and that was causing overheating. But they seemed to think that they couldn't diagnose if this was the problem or not. We were confused by this. At this point the mechanic has said that they don't know where to go from here and that we should take it to a dealership to see if they can diagnose it.

So at this point we are taking it to a different mechanic to see if we can get an actual diagnosis on it. The car isn't worth much, so if the head gasket needs to be replaced, we will just sell the car for parts and get a new car. But since we can't get a clear answer on what is wrong, we don't want to make that decision. We don't drive the car a lot and just short distances. So it would be nice if we could just get it to last a little longer.

Any advice?

One other thing about the overheating: usually right before it starts to overheat we can smell a little bit of a burning smell. (yikes!)

Source: http://autoforums.carjunky.com/Automotive_Repair_C1/General_Discussions_F5/2002_Ford_Focus_-_Unexplainable_Overheating_P121676/

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