Radiator fan problems?
 

Hi all,
Have had my 2000 xc70 for about 6 months now, it is a 2.4 T petrol and in the very cold whether I have notice the temp gauge dropping and the heater not being effective, especially at motorway speeds, so I changed the thermostat which has solved the problem but now I have noticed the temp gauge will quickly get up to the midway point and not budge. This is great but I had the car idle car an age and the fan did not kick in no matter what. The top radiator pipe got red hot but no fan, temp gauge still on the middle, I then switched on the aircon and although I heard a click the radiator fan still would not go on. Have I got a problem? or does it take a lot more for the fan to kick in? Like I said the temp that’s never goes above the halfway mark.
Any ideas, thanks
Ick

Hi Ick,

One way to check if the radiator fan works, is to remove the wiring plug
from the temperature sender at the thermostat. The fan should start working.

Jude

Just tried it and lo and behold the fan came on! Thanks so much for that. I actually now think I have a problem with the sender unit as when I replugged I got no reading on the gauge, had to fiddle an awful lot with it get it working, might be an intermittent prob with it.
Having not owned a Volvo before do you know if they do not rely on the electric fan much, my last car a Vauxhall seemed to have it in almost constantly.

Thanks again
Nick

overheating is not a good thing for alloy blocks and heads

if I've been in any sort of traffic even vaguely slow moving for any reasonable length of time when I pull up at home and get out the fans are running and they do run on for a good few minutes after the car's turned off

also when you've been using A/C they come on about 30mins later again all by themselves to help dry out the system

I'd definitely make it a priority to ensure it was working correctly, that's just my opinion not necessarily based in any particular qualification or anything

and of course most likely stating the obvious but making sure the coolant was topped up correctly.. in a panic of course you can always put the blowers on full and hot but again im sure this is just teaching to suck eggs as it were

volvo cooling systems are very generous with huge radiators designed for the tropics, and you wont find the fan coming on in the winter much at all like small hatchback cars which have radiators just about big enough to do the job....... also they dont "kick-in" they are variable speed and sometimes run very slow so you cant hear them.