You have no items in your shopping cart.
Part 2: Components of The Cooling System
Mounted on the back of the radiator, on the side closest to the engine, is one or two electric fans inside a housing that is designed to protect fingers and to direct air flow. These fans are there to keep the air flow going through the radiator while the vehicle is slowing down or when it’s stopped with the engine running. If these fans stopped working, every time you came to a stop, the engine temperature would begin rising.
On older systems, the fan was connected to the front of the water pump and would spin whenever the engine was running because it was driven by a fan belt instead of an electric motor. In these cases, if a driver would notice the engine begin to run hot in stop and go driving, the driver might put the car in neutral and rev the engine to turn the fan faster which helped cool the engine. Racing the engine on a car with a malfunctioning electric fan would only make things worse because you are producing more heat in the radiator with no fan to cool it off.
The electric fans are controlled by the vehicle’s computer. A temperature sensor monitors engine temperature and sends this information to the computer. The latter determines if the fan should be turned on and actuates the fan relay if additional air flow through the radiator is necessary.If the car has air conditioning, there is an additional radiator mounted in front of the normal radiator. This “radiator” is called the air conditioner condenser, which also needs to be cooled by the air flow entering the engine compartment.
As long as the air conditioning is turned on, the system will keep the fan running, even if the engine is not running hot. This is because if there is no air flow through the air conditioning condenser, the air conditioner will not be able to cool the air entering the interior.
Virtually all late model vehicles and the vast majority of road going vehicles use radiator cooling fans with electric motors to keep the engine cool.
The electric motors found on many cooling fans are not much different than regular industrial use electric motors, and are often a serviceable or replaceable component of the cooling fan assembly. As they are the component that rotates the fan blades and creates the air flow, any issues that eventually arise with the fan motors can quickly develop into other problems. Usually a bad or failing cooling fan motor will display a few symptoms that can alert the driver of a potential problem that should be serviced.
Cooling fans do not come on
The most common symptom of a faulty cooling fan motor are cooling fans that do not come on. If the cooling fan motors burn out or fail, the cooling fans will be disabled. The cooling fan motors work together with the cooling fan blades to pull air through the radiator. If the motor fails the blades will not be able to spin or generate air flow. A fan may not come on as a result of any of the following
• Defective temperature switch, coolant sensor or other sensor
• Engine thermostat is stuck OPEN (engine never gets hot enough to turn on the fan)
• Faulty fan relay
• A wiring problem (blown fuse, loose or corroded connector, shorts, opens, etc.)
• Bad fan motor
• Defective fan control module
If you suspect that your cooling fan motors may be having an issue, have the vehicle inspected by a professional technician. For your convenience, Start My Car keeps a small range of replacement cooling fan assemblies
Product | Price | Quantity | Options |
---|
Features |
Availability: |
Price |
Options |
Actions |
We were unable to identify your vehicle.
Please select it manually below
Please be patient.
This may take up to a minute!
Please wait while we find all the products which fit your vehicle