Hi guys and girls. My 2.2 petrol Croma's electric fan seems to be running almost all the time, even when the outside temperature is cold and the engine barely warm. Is this normal? It's also very noisy and draws attention by continuing after turning the engine off too, as though it feels the need to cool an engine it thinks is very hot. What controls the fan, is it directly linked to the thermostat, might that need replacing?

Cheers!

Probably controlled by the engine ECU, having taken temp readings from the engine temp sensor(s) (There may be one or two) and there may be a temp sensor in the rad too. It will also be controlled by the aircon.

Thermostat is unlikely to be the problem, unless the engine is running hot.

Ideally you need MultiECUscan plugged in and read teh various sensors inputs. Hopefully that will show which one is calinming it is hot when actually cold.

The fan may well have a resistor to give two or more speeds. On Punto this is mounted in the fan mounting bracket. If the resistor is failing, or shorting out, it may feed the fan when it shouldn't.

This is the eLEARN documentation for the cooling system:

http://4cardata.info/elearn/194/2/194000000/194000000/194000005/194004195

For offline access you can download a copy of eLEARN here:

https://www.fiatforum.com/downloads.php?do=download&downloadid=373

Download all the rar files into a single folder, then use a program like 7-Zip (freeware) to combine/decompress them into a single iso file (by opening/extracting part01), then burn the iso to CD (or run as a virtual CD with something like Virtual CloneDrive).

Finn said:

Hi guys and girls. My 2.2 petrol Croma's electric fan seems to be running almost all the time, even when the outside temperature is cold and the engine barely warm. Is this normal? It's also very noisy and draws attention by continuing after turning the engine off too, as though it feels the need to cool an engine it thinks is very hot. What controls the fan, is it directly linked to the thermostat, might that need replacing?

Cheers!

Click to expand...

Which fan? If the car has aircon, there are two.
Description from eLearn
The engine radiator and air conditioning condenser cooling system consists of radiator pre-wiring, interfaced with the engine services cable, including the relay box, resistors and two fans operating at three different speeds depending on the engine coolant temperature level and the pressure of the air conditioning refrigerant fluid.
Both the signals are managed by special sensors (temperature and linear) which inform the engine management control unit of the cooling circuit status. On the basis of their internal logics, the control unit manages the single or combined engagement of the 2 fans.
The power supply lines for the fans are protected by two special fuses (with a capacity that varies according to the engine type and version), located in the engine compartment junction unit.


So lots of possible issues. You really need to get diagnostics like Multiecuscan on the car and see what the sensors are reporting.

Robert G8RPI.

Thanks everyone. We plugged into multiecuscan and it showed no problems. The software was able to control both fans, so I heard them both and I'm pretty sure the one I'm talking about is the main fan. It was also able to drive the fan at both speeds, so both the settings seem to work... We didn't think to look at specific readings, maybe I'll see when I can get back to the guy with the software and look at those, see if maybe some sensor is reporting itself to be hotter than it is. At least it isn't running hot, temp gauge settles nicely in the middle of C and H.