UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

today i stopped coz heat indicator came on and steam was coming out bonnet. it seems that my fan has not been working to cool the radiator and in turn coolant bubble over etc etc...

anyone have any ideas of what i can do to get the car goin again . ie what do i need to do to replace the engine coolant. spherical container on 6n dont know bout other cars.

also has anyone had this problem? how did you solve it?
i checked for voltage when angine was hot and was no voltage at the pins.

is a thermistor buggered somewhere?, could a blown fuse stop my fan working?

plz help me i need to mend this myself as i am skint and cant afford a .

Firstly are you sure it's because of the fan that it's over heated? If you are then read on.

The easiest test to see if it's the fan or the thermoswitch that's at fault is to short the 2 wires to the thermoswitch together. The fan should come on. If it does then your thermoswitch is knackered.

If it doesn't then we need to look futher. Start with the fuses then if that yields nothing try connecting up 2 wires the the fan and a battery to see if it'll spin. If it doesn't then your fan's probably knackered.

If it does spin up then there's probably a wiring problem which you'll have to trace with a multi meter.

good luck!

(PS a thermoswitch is the thing in the radiator that will turn the fan on/off, a thermostat is in the engine and blocks water flow until the engine's warm then opens up allowing it to flow and cool things off.)

yeh have done the above now and the fan runs, i got a new thermoswitch from vw and swaped it but they gave me a dual spin switch when my 6n is only a single spin . apparently the switch is coming tommorrow soi will fit it in the evening.

funny thing is tho i needed to pop into town so i just shorted feed and switch wire from thermoswitch so fan was constantly on.

although the car did not over heat it was getting hotter than usual, i have the coolant full .

what else could be the problem causing it to overheat?

i'd suspect the 'stat may not be fully working.. do the rad hoses get hot ?

noodlez_polo wrote:yeh have done the above now and the fan runs, i got a new thermoswitch from vw and swaped it but they gave me a dual spin switch when my 6n is only a single spin . apparently the switch is coming tommorrow soi will fit it in the evening.

funny thing is tho i needed to pop into town so i just shorted feed and switch wire from thermoswitch so fan was constantly on.

although the car did not over heat it was getting hotter than usual, i have the coolant full .

what else could be the problem causing it to overheat?

I suspect you may now have a partial airlock in the engine that you need to bleed out - it can be done sometimes by giving it a good few revs as the engine is warming up (don't do it on a cold engine - it's not nice and if you try and do it when the engine is hot you'll get burnt) with the resevoir bottle cap off - it helps if you squeeze whatever hoses you can find to try and push the air around and get it out of the system

noodlez_polo wrote:today i stopped coz heat indicator came on and steam was coming out bonnet. it seems that my fan has not been working to cool the radiator and in turn coolant bubble over etc etc...

anyone have any ideas of what i can do to get the car goin again . ie what do i need to do to replace the engine coolant. spherical container on 6n dont know bout other cars.

also has anyone had this problem? how did you solve it?
i checked for voltage when angine was hot and was no voltage at the pins.

is a thermistor buggered somewhere?, could a blown fuse stop my fan working?

plz help me i need to mend this myself as i am skint and cant afford a .

I have the same problem!

I was told the 3pin switch (bolted to the radiator and on the end of 3 wires) was burnt out.
Firstly how the hell do I get to the bolt, cos its inside an opening that I cant get to... I think I need a wrench socket thingymajig... but that means I have to pull out the thing that connects to the switch right?

Anyhelp would be appreciated... as I too am broke as fuk!

same thing happened to my car, coolant temp went right up, opened the bonnet and the coolant was boiling. took it to the vw centre and had the thermostat replaced and its been perfect since.

your thermostat may have gone but another issue that may need attention is the coolant pump. The vanes on the pump are made from crappy plastic and snap off. mine broke at 55000 miles and took the thermostat out too.

run the engine without the thermostat in place your fan will whizz away all the time, if the car still overheats then the coolant pump is knackered and will need to be replaced, dont let the engine overheat too much, if it does and keep an eye out for headgasket failure, if your unlucky.

If the pump has gone its a good idea to replace you cambelt and cambelt tensioner at the same time as the pump for peace of mind in the future.

Hope this helps but waterpumps on all 1995 onwards VAG cars is quite common.

hawyziee wrote:same thing happened to my car, coolant temp went right up, opened the bonnet and the coolant was boiling. took it to the vw centre and had the thermostat replaced and its been perfect since.

How much did it cost you to fix?

Luckily my mate is a mechanic... he checked it and it turns out it was the thermostat thats broken. Also my 3pin housing is basically melted onto cooler fan switch so that isnt so easy to take off.
Hopefully its just the thermostat thats wrong and the switch wont give me any problems. *fingers crossed*