Worst fears: 318ti overheating

[polley 916]

Fan should still spin by hand. And I thought you said earlier you tried to bypass the switch and it still wouldn't work.

[KwS 2373]

fan should spin freely (both the Aux fan in the front and the radiator fan in front of the engine) with the car off, by hand. If it doesnt, its stuffed. Pretty common failure and would explain why the car is fine when moving but when stopped it gets hot.

[LemonHunter 583]

fan should spin freely (both the Aux fan in the front and the radiator fan in front of the engine) with the car off, by hand. If it doesnt, its stuffed. Pretty common failure and would explain why the car is fine when moving but when stopped it gets hot.

The 318Ti Compacts only have the Aux fan, so if that fails, you're going to have a bad time. It does have the mounting point for a viscous fan though, I've thought about attaching the one off my E30 while it's off the road for some redundancy

Edited December 7, 2015 by Charlie F.

[KwS 2373]

ah guts, thought they had an electric fan behind the radiator too. must be thinking of something else.

In which case its even more dire if the aux fan isnt turning as they are real prone to seizing. Not so bad on a normal E36 that has a main cooling fan, but if thats all you got...!

[paww 1]

Fan should still spin by hand. And I thought you said earlier you tried to bypass the switch and it still wouldn't work.

I may of misunderstood what I was looking at.

I honestly don't know now as it appears to come on fine when I switch on the AC, and it didn't before. - I question my attempt my bypassing the switch actually worked now too.