Aux fan

[Bargain Bucket]

Question. When I turn on the air conditioning, is the auxiliary fan in front of the radiator supposed to come on? It doesn't on mine and I've noticed on another forum that somebody was saying these are a common failure on the E53.

[X5Sport]

Is your AC actually working? If you crank the temp all the way down, does the temp fall?

TIS for the fan, in case you need to change it:

http://tis.spaghetticoder.org/s/view.pl?1/05/74/35

[Bargain Bucket]

Yes - it's having a very good cooling effect.

[X5Sport]

Added the TIS for changing it.....can't find where the switch is though. Check it isn't a blown fuse (above glove box).

[Bargain Bucket]

Many thanks for the help. It seems that it is working but only when the AC is set on absolute lowest temperature setting (MAX button). And it's very wobbly.

[X5Sport]

The fan or the AC? I presume you mean the fan. I know my X5 used to sound like. Prop job aircraft in the Summer months when thevAC was running but not otherwise so may be there's a thermocouple monitoring the outside air temp and it kicks the fan speed up and down dependant upon that.

But if the fan is 'wobbly' that doesn't sound very good. It would tend to pint towards a bearing issue - assuming the motor screws aren't loose. I don't know how 'steady' they should be, or if they're on a viscous coupling like the engine fan is - I suspect not.

[AW8]

Mine failed............Not a cheap part to source & have fitted.

[Bargain Bucket]

[quote=""X5Sport""]The fan or the AC? I presume you mean the fan. I know my X5 used to sound like. Prop job aircraft in the Summer months when thevAC was running but not otherwise so may be there's a thermocouple monitoring the outside air temp and it kicks the fan speed up and down dependant upon that.

But if the fan is 'wobbly' that doesn't sound very good. It would tend to pint towards a bearing issue - assuming the motor screws aren't loose. I don't know how 'steady' they should be, or if they're on a viscous coupling like the engine fan is - I suspect not.[/quote]

The fan. But it's very, very quiet. You really can't hear it. Maybe it is variable speed dependent upon all sorts of factors. Certainly doesn't sound like a prop aircraft. I'll investigate the wobble further ASAP.

[X5Sport]

Mine only got loud on very warm days - external temps around 30C. It was a lot quieter the rest of the time, to the point where I couldn't hear it at all most of the time. As long as it's spinning then it sounds OK.

Our E46 is exactly the same (same engine).