Radiator fan never comes on...

[Frickadella]

...but the gauge never goes above the middle reading either. Whether I drive it on the freeway or let it sit and idle in my California driveway, the gauge never reads over-hot and the fan never comes on. I turn off the car and expect it to continue to heat up (with key @ON ) but it doesn't and still no fan.

I recently rebuilt the engine and replaced cylinder head due to overheating from clogged radiator so I'll be damned if I let it happen again.

I checked the lo-mid-hi relays and gave power directly to the fan and it powers up. I pulled the ecu's temp sensor and it showed a steady change in resistance. Thermostat fine too.

I put half a bottle of Water Wetter in since the rebuild, but I don't expect THAT much a difference.

Any thoughts? Anyone want to assure me this is normal as opposed to my experience with my scaly overheating engine? Regards.

(1995 TSI Talon )

 

[DSM1G90]

Nah, water wetter won't make any difference.-waste of money.

50/50 mix is all you need.

How about the sending unit in the bottom of the radiator, they can go out. Did you get the radiator boiled out of gunk that had built up in the bottom?

Once every other year doing a total engine/radiator flushout with a new 196* t-stat and cap works wonders.

 

[Frickadella]

The radiator is new since the clogged one and I believe only the 1Gs have a sensor on the radiator.

 

[my dreamt dsm]

Will, from my past experience I found out two things that can cause the fan not to come on. One is the fan switch connector and the other was thermostat.
I'm not sure how a thermostat can cause it not to come on but in my previous threads that was the only thing I changed and it worked. I was plague with this problem for over 1.5 years until the new thermostat went it.

 

[luv2rallye]

On a 2g the fans are controlled by the ECU according to vehicle speed, ECT, and A/C on/off. There are cases where they can be off: http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=86862&d=1219990229