2001 SL1 Radiator Fan Not Working
 

My radiator fan quit working so when I stop for a few minutes, such as a red light, the temp. goes into the red zone. I have a 2001 SL1.

I popped the hood and noticed that the fan is not working. Do I just need to install a new relay, or will I likely need a new motor or fan? Thanks for any help with this.

I forgot to mention: the a/c is starting to go out too; it blows cold for a few minutes and will then get warmer, and goes back and forth. I have heard that the fan in Saturns are connected with the A/c in some way. In this case, I'm wondering if the fan is good but the A/C might be causing the problem?

Your A/C behavior and heating up at stops are fully consistent with the fan motor not operating at all.

Indeed, the fan is designed to kick in when the A/C is turned on and should be running whenever the A/C is running. This helps cool the condenser when the car is stationary, thus keeping the A/C air cool when the car's not moving. Same goes for the radiator if the engine gets hot enough, thus explaining your heating up at stop lights without the fan kicking in to cool things back down (fan should kick in at 3/4 tick)

So the fan is not kicking on when it should (at all). The question is why not....

Normally I would start with replacing the ECTS which measures coolant temp but since yours does read right into the red zone it appears functional in the right ways.

Next to check is the relay. Swap it with the identical one next to it (the A/C relay, which we know is good since the A/C kicks in) in the underhood fuse box. Try to turn on the A/C. IF the A/C comes on, then we know the cooling fan relay itself is good, since it operates in the A/C relay slot just fine. If the A/C doesn't come on, then the cooling fan relay was bad and needs replacing.

Another quick test is to disconnect the connector at the fan and briefly wire the terminals straight to the battery (and ground) just long enough to see if the fan spins. If it does not, the fan motor is bad.

It is possible but unlikely that the relay AND fan motor are both bad --- so diagnose in the order listed above......(relay, then fan motor)

Quick -- clean -- concise -- correct.

Derf, you are the Master .......

Thanks, Derf!
 

Thanks a lot, Derf! Your advice was right on target, and I don't think anyone could have put it more clearly! You saved me about $250. It was the fan which I bought for $40 and was able to install in about 2 hours. I'm new to doing my own car work so most people could probably do it in a few minutes.

I found this video on youtube, but there was no way I could take out the fan in 5 minutes :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-FQjlPrqrc

Always glad to help.
Welcome back to the land of the fanned.....

(Thanks for the props, OA....)

I have done all this and my fan still does not kick on at all. What should i do now? My thought was to just rig it up to a small switch and the battery so i can just flip it on when ever i get in my car. Yes or no? any help would be awesome and greatly appreciated. Thank you!

What was the result when you wired the fan directly to the battery terminals?
Fan works or doesn't work?

It worked fine, but replacing the relay and the motor with it hooked up the correct way it doesn't work, so i am assuming some sort of short or torn wire somewhere in there.

does your A/C engage the A/C clutch when turned on?
Does the system blow cold air?

it does engage but it only blows cold air for a few minutes. then bows luke warm air the rest of the time, i'm not worried about a/c though just dont want my car to keep over heating and eventually causing other issues

if the a/c clutch engages but the fan does not come on, this leads me to believe it is a wiring issue either with the fan motor, the fan relay, or the MAYBE the ECTS connection to the PCM.

When you turn on the A/C, the PCM commands the fan to turn on if the A/C low/press/highpress switch is not open and the the fan stays on while the AC is on.

Since your fan is not turning on at all in the above scenario but the motor itself works, voltage/current isn't getting to the fan. The question is why.

I would suspect a bad connection from the motor wiring to the underhood fuse box or an issue with the fan relay socket or the wiring underneath it.

You may also have a bad ECTS or connector, but as far as I know the fan operation with the A/C on is totally independent of this reading.

I'd start tracing for continuity backwards starting from the fan harness. Don't overlook the connectors themselves.

Please list car model and year and add to your signature in your user profile.

OKay i will check all that out, thank you so much, and as for making my car modle year all that as my signiture i dont see where to do that at.

User CP -- top left of the forum header screen under the pic of the car. click edit signature

Okay i found it. lol Thanks again, i will post tomorrow and let you know, it's starting to get dark here in Indianapolis.

Do you have a volt meter or a VOM?

Pull the fan relay and look of the schematic of the relay, it is somewhere on the relay. There should be 4 pins on the relay, two are for the coil and two are for the contacts.

See which pins are for the contacts. If you have a volt meter or a VOM, check for 12 volts on the sockets where those pins go in the underhood fuse box, one of them should have 12 volts. If you don't have a volt meter, then take a small piece of wire, or a paper clip and short the two sockets together. Hold the wire with pliers because it will get very hot, very quick.

If the fan motor runs, then the issue is with the controller, which in your case is the PCM. For this you will need a wiring diagram. I don't have mine anymore.

If you don't have the 12V on either socket, then the issue is between the underhood fuse panel and the battery. If you do have 12V on one socket, then short the sockets together and if motor doesn't run, then the issue is in the wiring between the underhood fuse panel and the motor.

Thanks for adding this level of detail for the testing Keith

Radiator fan
 

I also had the same problem. Switched fuses, no luck, tested for and had power at the plugin for the fan motor. I took off the fan motor assembly and for grins hot wired the fan motor to the batter. The fan ran so I plugged the connection back in and the motor worked. Saved a few bucks.

Coolant temp sensor
 

Try replacing the coolant temp sensor. Like any electrical system sensors go out

Hi,

I'm the ghost of LJ57.

I started this thread 10 years ago to solve my own issue.
Over the years, others tagged onto mine because they had similar issues but not quite the same as mine.
I had a bad fan motor.
Some other dude had dirty contacts on his fan motor and connector. They got swept clean during removal and reinsertion after a successful bench test and worked fine.

My problem, AC clutch engages but only blows cold air, then warm, says that, if true, AC pressure is above low press switch cutoff but no by how much. Enough to not trigger the switch. When driving, if the fan is not spinning, as you drive you are pushing cold air across the condenser and partially cooling things but when you stop moving, everything heats back up due to 0 airflow across the condenser. This will happen even without the AC clutch engaged so I think I may have been wrong in the info I gave.

I think my AC pressure was below the lower limit and the low pressure switch was triggered, cutting current to the compressor clutch. If I had checked the hi low AC pressures I would have seen that ti never was turning on and the low side was too low.
When I added refrigerant to to the system, once I crossed the lowe pressure limit, both the compressor and cooling fan would have kicked in. The mod writing this up has personally experienced that, So if I had provided correct details I would have gotten a diff recommendation.

Which would still NOT be to repolace the ECTS.

Why? Because we don't encourage "Shotgunning" parts on the forum,
We diagnose things based on input provided, then make recommendations. Recommendations are only as good as the info provided

1) Welcome to the forum
2) Please do not respond to 10 yer old threads (yes I know it's been hijacked to a much more recent date)
3) Please do not suggest replacemernt of parts with no explanation.-- shotguning parts gets expensive -- for OTHER people - so don't recommend stuff unless you can justify it by troubleshooting.
4Thread closed