2004 Engine Cooling Fan does not work

Hello,
the engine radiator cooling fan of my citroen c3 1.4hdi does not run (and, as consequence, as consequence, also the air conditioning compressor does not run)
It is always motionless.
I noticed this failure when i saw that when the engine was very hot, after a long trip,
and i stopped the car for some time, i saw leakage of cooling liquid under the car.
This was due to the fact that without the action of the fan, the internal pressure of the coolant increased a lot.
I checked that the fan is always motionless, also in this way:
i read somewhere that detaching for a while the temperature sensor of the thermostat, when the engine is running, the engine ECU should fan should notice a failure in the cooling system, and so should start the fan to maximum speed. But this does not happen.
To test the fan, i removed it.
This is a snapshot of the fan:


The manufacturer is 'FERUCIA'
To begin, i would like to test the fan motor, if it can run.
I have some doubts about the fact that the relais works fine and some doubts about the ECU is sending the command to start the fan, so, i would like to check the motor of the fan first.

So i removed the wires ( including the grey relais ), so that i got this:


You can see five contacts:
two (the bigger) are for the red and yellowgreen wires that comes from the relais
three (the thinner) are for the 2 small wires coming from the grey connector (that is linked to the engine ECU)
one of the three contacts is not connected, there is no wire for it.

Could someone suggest me a way to test if the motor of the fan is working?
I know i have to give 12V on the big contacts.
But on the three (two) small contacts, which tension i have to provide to these contacts to start the fan.

Could you help me?

Thanks!!

vicolodo wrote:Hello,
the engine radiator cooling fan of my citroen c3 1.4hdi does not run (and, as consequence, as consequence, also the air conditioning compressor does not run)
It is always motionless.

The test for the fan is to connect Lexia and run the fan test.

The multi speed and is ECU controlled and monitored by the ECU and as you mentioned, it can inhibit A/C and other features if the cooling system has a fault.

With lexia you can see what temperature reading the ECU is seeing and tell it to activate the fan to test the system.

Its not necessary to remove the fan to test the system.



This is the connector on some of the C3 diesel models and the 2 fatter, heavy current wires carry 12v and GND while the smaller wires carry a lower voltage used to control the multi speed fan.

I found this on another topic

C3Driver52 wrote:The diesel has a 3 pin plug. One wire (white) always read 12v to battery earth (its fed from the BSI), Yellow didn't read anything (fed from the Engine ECU) and the pinky purple one (fed from the Engine ECU) measured 8v (to battery earth) which decreased as the fan slowed down. Its highly possible the pinky purple was more than 8v before I managed to look at the meter, so Its probably 12V for full fan speed.

questions-about-a-petrol-powered-citroe ... -t400.html

Thank you very much, Arfur!!
I don't have a Lexia scanner, but i think i will buy one in the future.
Reading the post you told me, perhaps i got the informations to test the fan motor also without the Lexia.
To begin, i would only know if my fan motor can run or not, providing the right input
Basing on the informations of the post you told me,
should be enought to provide 12V (+) to the big pin (that you can see in the second snapshot),
corresponding to the red wire, and connect the other big pin to the battery ground (-)
And to control the speed of the fan, provide a variable tension (between 0 and 12V) on one of the small pins ,
the one corresponding to one of the small wires (the grey wire).
In the snapshot you can see also other 2 small pins, the function of these should be this:
- feedback to the ecu: inform the ecu that the fan is actually running
- not connected to any wire.

The grey connector of the snapshot you posted,
has three wires:
one is the wire that go to the relais , when is provided to it a tension of 12V , the relais closes the circuit to allow the red wire to provide tension to the fan.
the other two go directly to the small pins of fan, and have the function explained above.

Do you agree?
Thank you very much again!!

hello, Arfur,
i have also another question:
is the lexia 3 compatible with my c3 pluriel 1.4 hdi , year 2004?
i already have an obd2 scanner, and i can connect it.
but the lexia has the same connector, or it is different?
thanks!

vicolodo wrote:is the lexia 3 compatible with my c3 pluriel 1.4 hdi , year 2004?

Yes.

vicolodo wrote:i already have an obd2 scanner, and i can connect it.
but the lexia has the same connector, or it is different?

Same connector,

but different electronics and software to allow it to do (nearly) everything that the dealer does.

Thank you, Arfur, you are very kind!
I will buy it.
Do you have any suggestion about the other post i wrote? (to check the fan motor without the lexia, because i have not it yet)
Thanks!

Hello,
i found this very interesting topic only now.
The fan of my Citroen C3 Pluriel 1.4 HDI does not work.
I removed it and now i would like to test if the fan motor is broken or if it can run.
I opened this topic:
https://citroenc3owners.com/diesel-citro ... t1637.html
Could you help me?
I need to know how the fan motor have to be fed, to test it.
To run it, i understood that it needs 12V on the big contacts (referring to the shapshot i posted in that topic),
and also a control signal on one of the small contacts.
I wonder which is the right contact (i.e. which is the small wire that carries the control signal...)
Thank you!

Hi Vicolodo,

I had more issues here than I originally thought , and under no circumstances could I get the fan to run on the car . You asked me via PM how I tested the fan , I can't 100% remember as it was a while ago , and I have since sol the car ( only to my in laws, so I do still get some of the maintenence issues! ) My vague memory is that , obvuiously one wire was earth, another was a permanent live , and then I'm sure the other was a switchable live, which when connected , would get the fan to work, but please don't quote me on this as I am not 100% sure!

My problems seemed to stem from the ECU somehow, and in the end I bought a 14 " generic fan from ebay , and adapted it to fit the original cowling and then purchased a thermoresistor ( with dial to set running temp , a lot of track cars seem to use these) , I then wired this in , and just left the wires for the origianl fan disconnected....I then set the dial to come on just as the 3rd bar on the temp guage was illuminated ( bit of trial and error that one ) ...all still working fine to this day!

( I think this came out the easiest way for me to deal with the problem due to the ECU controlling the fan ,. I did try a known working fan in the car first but to no avail)
I
I Hope this helps

thank you very much,
ronniecabers, you are very kind.
This topic is old, so i thought no one could still answer me.
Instead you answered and so i am happy for this

Reading the topic, i saw you had the same problem as me: to understand how to check the fan motor to test if it is broken or not.
Thank you,
i removed the fan because i saw that the wires near the connector were damaged, hoping that fixing them the fan could run.
It is very easy (takes no more than 10 minutes), it is enought to remove the two screws that hold it on the top, and pull the fan from the top.

I have not bought yet the lexia 3 (but i an planning to buy it), so for now i can only test the fan motor directly connecting wires from the battery to the fan motor contacts you see in the snapshot.

I need to know which of the contacts need power to start the fan.
I am sure, the two big contacts that you see, need: red : 12V yellowgreen : earth
but , as you see, there are also three small contacts:
one of these is not connected to any wire, the other two are connected : to a grey wire and (the other) to a yellow wire.
i wonder to which of these two small contacts i have to provide power, to start the fan.
I checked with the tester that now my car provides power 12V to the big contact corresponding to the red big wire, and 12V to the small contact corresponding to the small grey wire,
but the fan does not run.
I read in c3driver52 post that he measured these tensions on the small wires (grey connector):
white 12V
purple 8V
yellow 0V
i instead read:
white 12V
purple 0V
yellow 12V

note that the colour of the wires change from before to after the grey connector
white to green
yellow to grey
purple to yellow

Hi Vicolodo,

Looks same wiring as mine....

Obviously you've found permanent live and earth , in the two thick wires. What you have in the small grey connector is the control wires from the ECU, I beleive one is high speed, one low speed , and the other aircon. I just had the fan out of the car , and using a spare 12v battery , connected the two thick wires up to the relevant live / earth , and then one by one touched the smaller wires onto the positive side , until the fan worked , which it did...however back in the car it did not , and after changing all the sensors , and testing continuity from ecu to sensors , and sensor to fan , I came to conclusion I had an ecu fault and did as I said in my post above putting a complete new fan and thermoresistor in. Yes I lost Aircon , but the car still has windows!

As for the change in colours afterthat small grey connector, mine did that too.