Skoda Rapid Radiator fan not working

[Koreenium]

Just realised that I have never seen the radiator fan move. I know it is not supposed to move all the time but when is it supposed to work?

 

I had the car idling for a little while when I was working on some of the things and did not notice that the fan ever worked. So I started looking at it more closely and I set the AC to full power and coldest but after few minutes of running nothing. Then I tried the highest temperature and still nothing.

I left the car to idle and I got the oil temperature warning, no fan. After letting it cool down I left it idling again and oil temperature went up to 90C what looked like a reasonable amount of time and slowly kept creeping up. I left it idling till it got up to 110C and decided to go for a drive which helped it cool down. Still did not see or hear the fan. I googled and read that engine overheating, or the oil getting hot is perfectly normal when car is left to idle... what's the point of the fan in the first place if that's true?

Anyway I decided to try out the AC once more. I left the car idling and AC on coldest but only at modest fan speed. I noticed that at first it was blowing cold air but it got warmer and warmer till it was blowing fairly warm air which would suggest there might be something wrong with the AC but at the same time the radiator fan never kicked in and when I went to drive, not only did the oil temperature come down but also the AC started blowing cold air again.

 

So am I missing something? Is this normal? Or would this suggest there is something wrong?

 

 

 

I have 2014 Skoda Rapid with 1.2 TSI 63kw (CBZA)

[Breezy_Pete]

Check fuses as a first step. 

[Koreenium]

3 minutes ago, Wino said:

Check fuses as a first step. 

Yes, that's the first obvious thing I was supposed to do but for some stupid reason I did not.

[Breezy_Pete]

Let me know if it's not obvious which fuses are involved, I should be able to help.

[Koreenium]

Ok so... not sure where the right fuse is.

 

 

They are all fine but I checked the fuse box diagram and the radiator fan one should be the second from the top. Which not only does not have a fuse but there is also no wire there as can be seen. And I can't see any loose wires hanging down there.

Edited 16 June, 2020 by Koreenium

[Breezy_Pete]

I will investigate for you tomorrow ☺️

[Koreenium]

14 minutes ago, Wino said:

I will investigate for you tomorrow ☺️

Thank you! That would be nice.

 

It was previously used as a taxi if that changes anything.

[Breezy_Pete]

@Koreenium Is it the Climatic, or Climatronic A/C system?

And I guess it's a Left Hand Drive car?

Edited 17 June, 2020 by Wino

[Breezy_Pete]

It's not in that fuse section that you want to be looking, it's the bigger fuses to the right of there.  Only if there was no A/C would it be the second one down in that section, as far as I can see.

 

In the wiring diagrams it's called SA5, a 50 amp fuse in that row of 6 (7 positions with one gap to the right of the first fuse). It has a thick (6mm² conductor cross-section) red/black wire coming from it.

 

I've been caught out by this before, where the wiring diagram only numbers the positions where it's possible to fit a fuse (so rightmost position is labelled 6), rather than all 7; but the Owner's manual and maybe the physical fusebox? labels all 7 positions and the numbers after 1 all get mismatched compared to the wiring diagrams.  So it might be in position 5 or 6 depending on whether this same mismatch has continued in this model.

 

There's another fuse to check, in the cabin fuseholder. Number 9 which gives an ignition live feed to the radiator fan control unit.

[Breezy_Pete]

This is the big one to check: 

 

[Koreenium]

It has climatic A/C and yes, it's left hand drive.

 

I overlooked the "Engine cooling fan". I also noticed that "engine cooling fan" is marked in two more places. 8 and 9 in dash fuse box. I checked all, literally all fuses in the dash and under the bonnet. They were all good unless I don't know how to use a multimeter.

[Koreenium]

I guess the next thing I should look for is the relay ( 1J0 919 506M ). Which should be somewhere under the car?

[Breezy_Pete]

Yes, probably hanging off a bracket on the left (your driver's side) chassis leg, near to the fan connector.

 

Alternatively, you could disconnect the wiring connector from the radiator thermoswitch (just above bottom hose connection) and short the brown wire to each of the other two connections. Ignition on for this, and mind fingers/hands as the fan blades could injure if it does spin up.

Brown wire to brown/blue should bring the fan  on at low speed, brown to brown/green should cause full speed.

[Koreenium]

Ok. I'll try this.

[Koreenium]

On 18/06/2020 at 13:05, Wino said:

Yes, probably hanging off a bracket on the left (your driver's side) chassis leg, near to the fan connector.

 

Alternatively, you could disconnect the wiring connector from the radiator thermoswitch (just above bottom hose connection) and short the brown wire to each of the other two connections. Ignition on for this, and mind fingers/hands as the fan blades could injure if it does spin up.

Brown wire to brown/blue should bring the fan  on at low speed, brown to brown/green should cause full speed.

Ok so the fan works if I connect it directly to power.

 

I tried shorting thermostats brow to brown/blue and brown/green and neither does anything. I did hear like a relay click twice with one of them but after that nothing.

[Breezy_Pete]

I think that demonstrates that you need a new fan control module. (Or there's some wiring problem somewhere near it).

Edited 24 June, 2020 by Wino

[Koreenium]

33 minutes ago, Wino said:

I think that demonstrates that you need a new fan control module. (Or there's some wiring problem somewhere near it).

I now need to find it and see if I need to replace it.

[Koreenium]

I have been looking through parts catalogues, workshop manuals and I have not been able to locate this fan control module. All I have found is this one parts number, 1J0 919 506M,

 

But I looked under the left side frame, under the battery etc and I could not see anything like that. Instead I noticed it has this other part but I have aboslutely no idea what part number it has or whether it is even the proper thing. It does look like the fan wires are going into it.

 

Any ideas?

[Breezy_Pete]

Yes, I think that's the later version. Internals are very similar but packaged differently.

I cut one up last year to see what was in there, but it's too late in the day for me to search for my photos etc. Will follow up tomorrow. 🙂

[Koreenium]

1 minute ago, Wino said:

Yes, I think that's the later version. Internals are very similar but packaged differently.

I cut one up last year to see what was in there, but it's too late in the day for me to search for my photos etc. Will follow up tomorrow. 🙂

I feel stupid now. I looked through bunch of parts catalogues and I did not notice this one part till now.

 

Apparantly this thing is 5J0 919 506.

 

Anyway thank you for the help!

[Koreenium]

Okey. So I got a used replacement part that is supposedly working and I still did not manage to get the radiator fan to work. I did notice that when I started the car after replacing fan control module, this part started making high pitch buzzing noise. It lasted for few minutes and then it stopped. I am going to try shorting the wires that go to the radiator thermoswitch and see if it works now.

 

Other than this I am starting to suspect there may be a wiring problem because horn is also not working and it is located right below all of this.

[Koreenium]

Update:

 

I unplugged termoswitch wire and shorted brown to green. I can hear relay clicking but fan is not moving. brown to blue aaand absolutely nothing. Now I have to start checking the wiring. Also may need to go over the fuses again.

[Koreenium]

Another update:

 

So now after replacing the radiator fan control module and driving around for a week I noticed a new problem. It seems that now something is draining the battery as car struggles to start after sitting like 8 hours. Voltage drops rather quickly after stopping the engine despite the battery being new and was holding charge just fine before. If I'm not mistaken then this may be another indication that there is some sort of wiring issue?

 

Also I noticed that a rat, mouse has clearly been in the engine compartment at some point as one of the foam pieces and a rubber seal are chewed up.

 

[Koreenium]

Finally managed to get it fixed. Apparantly one of the wires had come loose from the plug.