Coolant and Aircon Fans

[Chrisby]

Can anyone help with this please. On my Octy Elegance Mk11, 1.9L the air con radiator fan runs when the air con is switched on as you would expect, the other fan the coolant radiator fan does not run and in fact I have never seen it run although of course it may from time to time. The engine does not overheat and appears to motor quite normally. My pal has a Audi A3 with the 2.0L engine and on his car both fans run at the same time right from cold, he thought that mine was possibly at fault and that both fans should run in parallel. Someone else told me that the fans con be configured electrically different ways and that my car is OK. Any opinion will be welcome,

Thanks.

Chris  

[Tim_davies-moss]

iv never seen my smaller fan run either

[Chrisby]

Thanks Tim,

I've booked it in to my local independent one man air con specialist who I know is reliable, he is to do a complete check on the system this coming Thursday but he also believes on what I told him that it is working to spec.I will post the results.

Cheers

Chris

[Chrisby]

Well the result of the check on the fans is that my air con man found that on testing the coolant fan never ran, he suspects wiring or fan fault. So why doesn't the car overheat? He says because the air con fan is also activated by the coolant temperature even if the air con is off, so that fan is doing the work of two.  

It seems very odd to me that there is no warning or other indication that the fan is broken, there could be many cars running around with this fault.

I have booked the car in again for next week for further investigation and will post result.

[kentphil1]

Check the wiring connector block on top of the starter for a cruddy connection or broken wire.

[Chrisby]

Thanks, I will have a look at that this week. The car is booked for Thursday further examination and I will post the outcome.   

[Chrisby]

Hi Everyone,

Well the conclusion to my posts is that the smaller diameter fan on the driver side was found to be electrically open circuited and totally kaput. This was replaced last Friday total cost £263. What happens now is that starting the engine from cold and with the aircon selected to Lo after a short time and the condenser radiator felt getting warm both fans start to run at their low speed. Now after a decent run in warm weather and the aircon on, at the point of stopping the engine there is no running noise from the fans whereas previous to the fault being fixed the large fan could be heard running down from its highest speed.

Its a concern that there is no indication to the driver that a fan has failed. It must place overload on the remaining fan. I saw a blog from one site which suggested a regular check under the bonnet to see both fans working, this makes sense.

Regards