Fan Continuously Running on 2011 GTi

[GTiMKVI]

Hi Everyone,

Need your help here. I’ve had an issue with my car for several months now where the fan keeps running even after I shut the engine off. I mentioned it to my mechanic who specializes in German cars, and he told me it’s normal, that the engine needs to cool down. I knew that wasn’t the case because it just started out of nowhere, and I’ve had the car for 8 years now without this happening, but I figured I’d listen to him and not pay attention. Now the car isn’t starting at times. I thought it was the battery, but it seems like it’s the fan draining the battery. So I took it to the shop and they couldn’t find the cause. Their opinion was that it’s probably the ECU giving wrong commands to the fan. He told me to take it to the dealer, and that it should be covered under the extended warranty. I only have 69,000 miles on the car, but I did buy it in February of 2011, so it is beyond the 8 year mark. It also has an APR flash done in 2014 by the same VW dealer I bought the car from, and I have read that it may be the flashing that caused the problem and The APR installer could fix it for just shipping costs or something. In this case the VW dealer was the installer.

So I wanted to see if anyone had the same experience, and what would you recommend.

Thanks for your responses

 

[gijoewoz]

It's summertime (well, was), the fan will stay on after you shut the car off, if the engine is still hot.

How long does it stay on? If you drive very carefully on a cold engine and park it, does it still come on?

 

[GTiMKVI]

Yes. All the time. Even if I go around the block and turn it off.

 

[Phur]

Which fan? Is the small one (ac fan) running? If not, the large one compensates and can cause this. We’ve had this issue with my wife’s mk5 Jetta. It seems to help to turn the ac off a minute before you shut off the car.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[GTiMKVI]

Thanks but it’s the ECU for sure. Called APr and they no longer repair these as it’s too costly to them. They told me to buy a used one with the same box code and they would reflash it for free of course. But the dealer would still have to install the ECU and program it. Sucks, but what can you do....

 

[Carbon Steel]

This was a common issue that signaled a fault on the mother board, normally some time after an APR stage upgrade.

Yours seemed to take quite awhile before manifesting, many occurred within a year. After a lot of heat from the forum and probably other customers, and checking their procedures APR finally took responsibility and fixed some of them.