Car over heating fan not tuning on

[tvguy56]

This is my first post.

2001 PT and is seems that the fan is not kicking on. What should I check first.
Purchased this car used about a year age in great shape but one thing I did notice is the fan seemed to run almost all the time. Is this normal?

[CREWZIN]

Welcome to the forum.

The fan should run anytime the engine reaches a set temperature, the air conditioning is ON or the air is directed to the windshield (which also turns on the compressor). If you start the car when everything is cold and turn the air-conditioning ON, the fan should turn on at low speed. When everything heats up the fan switches to high speed. The fan also shuts off when you reach 35mph as there should be enough air flow through the radiator to keep things cool.

If it's not coming on, there's a few things that could be wrong but 98% of what owners have experienced is the fan motor burning out. If you can't do it yourself, it could run a few hundred dollars with parts and labor. A new fan/housing can be bought for about $100, the rest is labor.

To check it out, you need to get under the car, find the electrical connection to the fan and take it apart. Then put a negative and hot wire to wires going to the motor and see if it turns on.

[tvguy56]

Thanks for the quick reply. I did just check and the fan did not come on when A/C was running. I have done some car repair in the past but not much with all the new electronics. How hard is it to tackle the replacement of the fan. Is there alot of other parts that need to be removed to get the motor off?

Thank you

[CREWZIN]

The fan housing (that holds the fan comes out from the top. The upper radiator hose comes off. the bracket that goes across the top of the radiator comes off. The front grill comes off. The radiator has to tilt forward to give enough room for the housing to come up and out so there one horizontal bracket in front of the radiator that needs to be removed so the radiator can tilt forward. One electrical connection to the fan and 6 bolts holding the housing to the back of the radiator. That's it.

Here's mine when i took it apart. I didn't want to unhook the hood latch so I just put the part that holds it to the side.