Engine fan

[pixl]

Lately I've noticed the fan will kick in when I switch the engine off on cold days and nights.

This is after regular driving with minimal traffic and an outside temp of 14-17*C -- It happened a couple of times when I first got the car, then never again. Obviously this is expected in summer and/or hard driving which is fine, but it's occurring more frequently and with the slight drop in coolant a few months ago (which I topped up) I can't help but wonder if something might be wrong.

[Kai]

hahaha funny you mention this.

I swear my car never use too do it.

Since i went too vw too get a new radiator cause mine was leaking.. Mine turns the fans on sometimes when i turn the car off.

[Bubu]

Maybe you have a faulty coolant temp sensor. Maybe a scan can pick that up, I dont have a scanner so maybe someone else can shed some light on that.

It does sound rather strange, I have never known my fan to come on after I turned the car off.

[gregozedobe]

Sometimes (but rarely) my Skoda cooling fan come on just after I switch the engine off (but goes off and stays off within 1 minute). I normally drive pretty sedately for the last few Kms of any journey so the turbo isn't hot when I switch it off.

I've read of a few VWs (and quite a few Skodas) that had faulty fan controllers or corroded fuse boxes that caused the cooling fans to come on (and stay on) when the engine was cold and had been switched off for hours. End result is a flat battery and therefore a "dead" car.

It happened to me when I had one for the day as a loaner while my van was being serviced - caused some red faces from the dealer as they had to come and get it from my place.

[instigator]

mine does that to, but i think it's normal because i have never had any problems so far..

[kelvniii]

Oh... mine does that when i drive it in a hot weather switch off the engine and it keeps running within 1 min then shut off

[blackbetty]

in my GTI, it does this too - its normal behavior for fan to run after engine is shut down. if it stays on then you have probs.

generally speaking a radiator get hotter for a few mins after you turn the engine off because there is no longer and water flow through radiator. therefore the fan comes on, takes away that initial heat build up.

in my torana srteet car (but with a crazy 6 cylinder engine), i used to run two fans, one controlled by temp sensor and the other was manual switch. after a hard run you could see the temp gauge in the radiator rapidly build up after motor shut down, then quickly go lower by running the fan (i ran two temp gauges - one for engine and one for radiator).

[Servo]

I've had my car since November and I've also driven the car from Canberra to Newcastle and it's never kicked in. I'm a bit worried now. Should the fan issues show up on VAG COM?

[barrenjoey owl]

Lately I've noticed the fan will kick in when I switch the engine off on cold days and nights.

This is after regular driving with minimal traffic and an outside temp of 14-17*C -- It happened a couple of times when I first got the car, then never again. Obviously this is expected in summer and/or hard driving which is fine, but it's occurring more frequently and with the slight drop in coolant a few months ago (which I topped up) I can't help but wonder if something might be wrong.

The fan comes on automatically to disperse the latent heat that develops after the engine is shut down. This is perfectly acceptable behaviour and has nothing to do with your thoughts about the outside temperature.

[break]

Have a peak and check your coolant when your car is cold (so first thing in the morning) to make sure it's sitting nicely between the 'min' and 'max' markings.

If that's fine, the other method I always do (not really necessary on modern turbo's, but I still like to do it) is drive off-boost for the final 5mins of the trip to cool down the motor and turbo. Hell, this is good practice for just about any car.

[Servo]

Yea I've checked the coolant level is fine. But I spoke to the APR dealer here when I dropped my car off and the's said that car will only turn on the fan when it really needs to. Guess I haven't really driven my car hard long enough for the fan to switch on.

[noone]

in recent months (summer) this has been very noticable.

we have had a few cool days recently, does not seem to come on atm.

[break]

Yea I've checked the coolant level is fine. But I spoke to the APR dealer here when I dropped my car off and the's said that car will only turn on the fan when it really needs to. Guess I haven't really driven my car hard long enough for the fan to switch on.

You'll be surprised just how much heat a turbo can produce very quickly.

Even hitting boost through 2nd/3rd two or three times as you near home could potentially be enough to heat up the turbo significantly, particularly when running a tuned car seeing the turbo is running towards the pointy end of its efficiency.

[Servo]

You'll be surprised just how much heat a turbo can produce very quickly.

Even hitting boost through 2nd/3rd two or three times as you near home could potentially be enough to heat up the turbo significantly, particularly when running a tuned car seeing the turbo is running towards the pointy end of its efficiency.

I'll be in agreement with you there and even when people say that turbo timer is not needed I disagree. Every turbo needs to cool down after a run and obviously there's other means in doing this but a timer does it pretty well.

I was concerned at first about the fan not turning on until I heard it from the mouth of someone who's around VW's all day that it'll only come on if only needed. I've got the 7500km service coming up soon and give it a once over and make sure everything is ok.