Engine fan in 2008 Chrysler Town & Country will not turn off unless I take out the fuse

Maintenance/Repairs
,
1

I don’t know that much about cars so please excuse me if I don’t use the right terms but the fan that turns on to cool the engine when you’re driving won’t turn off when I turn off the van. Before I knew what was going on it was killing my battery over and over again and I kept getting jumps, finally took it to Sears and bought a new battery. Later that day I came back to the van, about a half hour after turning it off, and realized the fan was still on. There was nothing I could do to get it to stop, Finally it killed the battery once again and I called AAA. The triple A guy who came showed me how to pull out the fuse under the hood with needle nose pliers to stop it. I had to drive it to Maine to visit my father and while there took it to his mechanics but of course when I pulled into their parking lot the engine fan turned off when I turned off the car. There were a few other repairs to be done, the air conditioner wasn’t working and the interior lights weren’t turning on, but during the week they had it the engine fan never did that weird thing for them. But when I picked it up two days ago, after driving it around town for a day and having it work fine, I took it on an hour and a half drive and once again the engine fan wouldn’t turn off. Should I resign myself to driving around with a pair of needle nose pliers in my glove compartment for the rest of the life of this van??

BTW, I’ve only owned this van for a few months. The problem started after I had taken it to a garage in New Jersey where I now live to have the air conditioner worked on. The said it had no freon but couldn’t find a leak so filled it with freon with a dye in it. They also said I needed to have my front wheels aligned and did that for me. I’ve wondered if something could have happened during those repairs to cause this problem. thanks.

2

Your fan relay is broken. Replace it.

3

Does this car have two fans? If so, are they both on? If you turn the AC off, do the fans go off?
I suspect Fatrap is right but just making sure they didn’t monkey around with your AC operation.

4

fan diagram. Stuck relay. Should be an easy fix, swap it out.

5

Yes that relay can be a problem. Fan switch / sensor combination or whatever your car has. Change it and keep the pliers in the garage.

6

The low or high speed relay could be sticking and causing the problem and that would be a simple fix. By pulling out the relays one at a time you could determine with relay is passing the power to the fan. The relays are most likely located inside the power distribution panel under the hood.

The trouble could also be due to something inside the TIPM module is turning on the relay and the relay is actually okay. By checking to see if power is going to the relay coil you could verify if that is the problem.

7

It depends on whether the fan is allowed to run when the key is “off”. Some cars allow that. My Corolla doesn’t. But if this car does, then another cause could be the coolant temp switch, or the ECM if it is done that way, that controls the fan.

I think though the problem is exactly as the folks above say, a fan relay is stuck. Simple and inexpensive to fix.

8

What controls you rad. fan Chrysler calls a fan control module. Rock Auto has them for about $40 +tax and shipping listed under fan relay They are basically a squarish sensor with a heat sink and a electrical socket. Mine was slightly smaller than a cigarette pack and on my 2003 was mounted just to the drivers side of the radiator and under the bumper cover, riveted to the top of the steel bumper.