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Recently I bought a SAAB 9-3 (II. gen) from the year 2006, diesel engine 1.9 TID 110kW (+/- 150hp) with the manual 6speed transmission.
The problem I am encountering for a few weeks now is with my radiator fan - might be just coincidence, but every time I wash my car, 1 of the 2 fans spontaneously starts to blow at high speed. Even when the car is parked, shut down and cool. Last time I got home, let the car cool down for about 3-4 hours, washed it - everything seemed to be fine, but in the middle of the night the fan started to work again. I tried to pull out every relay and fuse (one at the time) from the fuse box inside the side of the dashboard and inside the engine - on the right side to the battery, but nothing stopped the fan from working.
I also noticed, that (I suppose) coolant temperature sensor might be damaged - every time the engine is under heavier load (not insanely crazy, more like going uphill, etc.) the needle on the dashboard gets to the middle of the spectrum, but while the engine is coasting, needle gets to the 1/4th of the spectrum. It pulsates quite quickly, so I do not think that the whole thermostat is broken.
I tried to disconnect the temp. sensor while the problem was occurring, but after I plugged it off the fan was still on.
Have anyone encountered this problem before? I will try to check if there is any shortcut tomorrow.
I tried to find the problem by simply spraying the water on the connectors and cables connected to the fans. after a long time of testing, trying, and falsely accusing the connector of the branch that is connecting ABS and ESP systems I think I found the problem - radiator fan control unit (shown on the picture below). I took it out (it is situated on the top of the radiator fan wall, it is directly connected to both of the fans), sprayed only this part again with water, plugged it back, checked the voltage and boom - one of the connectors were giving around 7.9V. I let it dry out, tested it again, and it was working fine. The whole testing method was then repeated once again with the same results as before.
Luckily this unit is not expensive at all, and it can be "salvaged" from Opel Vectra C or Signum (or maybe more cars that have the same engine - 1.9 TID/CDTI)Even though it is quite cheap to buy that unit, I am still going to try to re-seal my old part and try it again. If I find out that it did not solve the problem I will update this thread.
03-29-2019, 02:14 PM
Radiator Fan starts spontaneously
