Cooling fan stays on after cars off

ANP2797

MEMBER
2011 MAZDA 3
2WD
AUTOMATIC
116,000 MILES

My cooling fan stays on for twenty to thirty minutes after I turn my car off. It does this about 80% of the time and usually when the cars has been on for more than twenty minutes. It’s been going on for a while. Could it be due to the fan itself being overused and possibly damaged or is there a more likely cause of this issue?

1 Reply

KASEKENNY

MECHANIC
18,907 POSTS

Hi ANP2797,

It is normal for an electric fan to continue to run after the engine is shut off. However, 20-30 minutes is too long. Have you checked your coolant level? If this is low it will cause the fan to run longer.

What we need to look at it is if the fan is turning off on it own and does just keep running until the battery is discharged, then PCM is keeping it on. The question is, why is it keeping it on?

We need to monitor the cooling temp sensor when you shut the engine off. You can do this with a scan tool that can look at sensor data. I suspect the cooling temp is remaining high which is why the PCM will continue to run the fan. Basically, it wants to cool the coolant down quickly so it keeps the fan on. If it doesn't turn off, we want to look at what the PCM is looking at and that will tell us if there is a sensor issue or maybe a PCM issue.

However, if the coolant is low, let's top that off and then see if this still happens. Let me know what you find. Thanks