56 Leon FR, radiator fan problems

[soupy12]

Car has been in the garge twice now with a sporadic fault with the radiator fans turning on after the engine is switch off. THis can happen after long drives, or even after a 2 minute drive.

Garage has commissioned an independent report on my car with out my knowledge or consent, and saying that since i replaced the standard plastic under tray with a aluminium under tray, this has allowed water and muck to go into the fan block connectors and cause corrosion. (something which i find hard to believe)

Has anyone had similar problems with this. this is only one of many faults with the car.

Rest are
DPF problems
vacuum pump seal cracked contaminating fuel with oil
exhaust sensors packed in
rear electric window motor packed in
radiator blew a hole behind head light
fans turning on
headlights dim when downshifting

cheers

 

[stuartsjg]

I cant see how corrosion would cause the fan to switch on. As far as i know, the fan is just a motor which gets power when it needs to run. There will probably be a relay somewhere which controls the power going to the fan.

I would ask to see the report, its very odd that a garrage would do this. I would have thought it would cost more than fixing the thing.

The connectors should be automotive standard connectors which are rated for IP55 as a minimum, i think normally IP65 or above, i know for offshore and on-ships IP66 is commonly used.

IP means "Ingress protection" and all conectors have a rating from IP00 to IP68.
Here:

• IP5x = Protected against dust - limited ingress (no harmful deposit)
• IP6x = Totally protected against dust
• IPx5 = Protected against low pressure jets if water from all directions - limited ingress permitted
• IPx6 = Protected against strong jets of water - limited ingress permitted

If they are saying that dust and water is the problem then the connector may not have been inserted properly or is faulty or is of incorrect design.

The radiator fan can run with the ignition in the off position. It may be that the ECU is reading an incorrect coolant temperature so the problem may not even be the radiator fan thats at fault.

As for all the other problems, make sure you get them all reported to seat as you wont have much warranty remaining.

As for your other problems:
--vacuum pump seal cracked contaminating fuel with oil
------ This should be a simple warranty replacement, oil going into fuel may have caused some of your other problems...
--DPF problems
------ What are the problems? Could have been caused by oil contaminating the DPF
-- exhaust sensors packed in
------ Again, id say a warranty job, again, could be caused by oil
-- rear electric window motor packed in
------ Unless you ran the wiper when it was forzen and burnt out the motor, id say that should be warrantable
-- radiator blew a hole behind head light
------ Could be realated to the fan issue
-- fans turning on
------ Addressed above
-- headlights dim when downshifting
------ May be a problem with the alternators voltage regulator, normally as engine rev's increase the alternator reduces the ammount of electricity it produces to keep the system voltage between 13.8 and 14.2v. It may be over-regulating. Does it do the same if you use the accelerator to hold the engine at high revs?

You could also get a report but it may cost a bit as youll be paying another garrage time to look at it.

Stuart

 

[soupy12]

Cheers Stuart.

All the other problems were fixed under warranty, but its one thing after another.

This is my second MK 2, and both gave serious hassle with DPF. I do big mileage an rev the engine out to 3 - 3500 rpm, sometimes more, so find it hard to to understand why the DPF was turning on, making the car lumpy when regenerating. Before the whole fuel / oil issue, the car was lumpy when regenerating, so i drove the car in 3rd/4th at 3500 rpm to manually regen it. this usually involved anything from 20 - 40 miles of driving and occasionally going into limp mode.

I would have thought the connectors would have water proof ratings, but apparently as says so in the report, since i didnt have my under tray on the car, water and dirt has ingressed into the connections, corroding them and thus is the cause.

so now they're trying to charge me for the courtesy car,and i have to pay for my car to be re-built because the above has void my warranty. and the car is apparently sitting with no front in it, radiator pulled out along with dear knows what else.

Craig