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The gf's car overheated... was about 1.5 gallons low on coolant can't find a leak anywhere. i think what is happening is the thermostat is sticking and its boiling the water off once its finally opening up. cause the car is running real hot, has a new water pump so that about all i can think it is. but when it did this the check engine light came on. anyone know how to reset them. can i just pull the battery cable wait a few and put it back on or is there another way. i tried a google search but all it did was pull up a bunch of shit i dind't want to sift through for 2 hrs...

You can pull the battery cable and keep it disconnected for about a minute to discharge the KAM (Keep Alive Memory) and clear the codes. Your other option is to find someone that will let you borrow a scanner and clear it that way.

my dad has a code reader for a ford but i don't think it goes to 96 so i doubt that would help... i'll try the battery cable trick to see if that works. she was at the drive up at her bank and i guess it blew a bunch of steam out from under the hood and the check engine light came on right after that so i'm thinking it must have sensed it was low on water or something. you'd think they tell you how to reset the SOB in the manual but hell no. they'd rather make 85 bucks and make you take it in and put it on the scope...

What's the model year?

I dunno anything about this car, but some cooling systems nowadays are really good at trapping air. Could there have been air trapped in the system after the pump was replaced?

Mystique first model year was 1995 and since all cars after Jan 1 1996 had to be OBDII, I wouldn't be surprised if all Mystiques were OBD II. If so, the check engine light will either clear itself if the car is run three times after the problem happened or you will have to do something more exotic than pull the battery cable to clear it.

Its a 96, water pump was changed 5000 miles ago. i noticed saturday night when we were headed home it was running hotter than normal but i checked adn the res still had water in it... today it actually had water in it but when i popped the cap hot air came out and the water dissappeared. it overheated 2 blocks from a buddy's fruit stand so i took it over there after it cooled off and put water in it. there was a lot of air in the system and i was thinking great it blew a headgasket but there isn't any water in the oil so that pretty much tells me thats fine.

duno.. light could be for bad relay for cooling fan or somthing like that.

Well disconnecting the ground on the battery for a couple min reset the ecu so the check engine light went off... everything is working car is running great and its not overheating for now. this weekend i am gonna cuss a lot and change out the thermostat just incase though