S3 - Cooling Fans not working

[S3 CYP]

This is the first problem with my car (2002 AMK) in the three years I have owned her where I have had to call the AA for a tow home.

Sat in traffic the other day and I noticed on the liquid gauge that the temp was raising to about 100 which on a hot day is normal - when there was a break in the traffic the temp would go back down to 91 - 92 .

I then hit some really heavy traffic ands when I noticed that the temp had risen to 108 and thats when the needle on the dash started to rise also.

I pulled over to check what was going on and did the normal checks, fuses were ok, no loss of coolant sitting just above the min mark, water pump (metal impaller) and therm were replaced 15,000 miles ago on the cam belt change.

Obviously the fans were not coming on but they were not seized and both could be spun by hand quite freely which prob means s**t with and Audi.

Did a bit of searching on here and found that the problem might be the Fan Cooling Module - so popped to Audi (got bent over for the part, even with a discount) changed it today and took her for a test drive and guess what - fans still not coming on!

The Air Con fan is not coming on either which made me go down the cooling module route if thats any help.

Any ideas fellow owners?

Costa

 

[quinnj2]

Hi,

Check the fuses on the top of the battery (green ones all should be 30 amps), Even if they visually look ok take them out and clean them, you may find them hard to take out, they have a habit of fusing to the contacts. Inspect everything round that area, I have seen a few tt's and s3's start fires in that area. Think the one furthest left is for the turbo coolant after run pump and air con fans, but check and take them all out. If that doesn't fix the problem consider testing just the fans, connect them directly up to 12 volts and see if they spin. Other thing could be temp sender gone up the duff.

Regards
James

 

[talentwalsh]

Had the same issue, as quinnj said the green fuse on the left had melted the connections even though the fuse wasnt blown. New fuse, cleaned the connections and all was rosey. You should find a spare one in the fuse panel in the dash by the drivers side.

 

[quinnj2]

Take a look at this, scary stuff.

The Audi TT Forum :: View topic - Potential fire avoided - Update warning to all please read

I had the fuses melt but never caused a fire, after seeing this I had the whole lot apart and cleaned and checked everything and still regularly check the area for melting. I think the problem is the actual contacts that touch the blades of the fuse.

 

[talentwalsh]

Hmmm, may take another look after that, better to be safe than on fire!!!

 

[murran]

get your multi meter out and unplug the fan plugs on the n/s of the fan cowling. check the resistance thru the fans (the big wires). they should be like 0.2ohms... if its reading in kohms/mohms then the fan motors are knackard........

you should really have checked this first before buying a modual.