Nearly at the bottom of my things to do list. As the title says my temperature gauge will always stay between cold and just over 1/4 - 75% between the two. With the engine off i can spin the fan although it will not spin freely for long and come to a stop after a second or so... How 'free' is the fan blade suppost to be? Does this indicate a faulty/sticky clutch?

With the engine on the fan is constantly running as soon as the engine is started, cold or warm. Is the fan suppost to be always on? When i rev the engine the fan does seem to speed up along with the engine although it is definatly not stuck solid to the cam. What do you guys think needs replacing?

Any ideas? :confused I've noticed my MPG is not all too good which is probably due to the engine running rich/cold.

Any help would be appreciated.

the fan sounds ok to me...but i deff think your thermostat is in need of replacement..mpg will suffer due to the computer thinking your car is always cold...change the thermostat and do a coolant flush

Thanks. I took the car to the stealership to see what they had to say a couple of days ago. The mechanic said there was something wrong with the fan but after reading some posts about faulty fan clutches this did not seem the case as i can turn the fan with the engine off. Are these fans meant to spin all the time whilst the engine is running, even on a cold start up? I will look into changing the thermostat first to see if this cures it. Anymore ideas? Thanks - Adam

^^^ Nice colour and rims.

It's the Thermostat sticking open. Happened to me on more then one occasion.

yup, i say replace the thermostat, t-stat housing, and all seals and gaskets around it. while you're there, might as well replace your coolant upper/lower hoses and flush out the coolant... if it's about time, that is.
that's going to be my first weekend project on my 525i. =D

I have a similar issue on my E36... but that's because its feels like negative eleventybillion outside....


bloody cold!

Thanks. I took the car to the stealership to see what they had to say a couple of days ago. The mechanic said there was something wrong with the fan but after reading some posts about faulty fan clutches this did not seem the case as i can turn the fan with the engine off. Are these fans meant to spin all the time whilst the engine is running, even on a cold start up? I will look into changing the thermostat first to see if this cures it. Anymore ideas? Thanks - Adam

^^^ Nice colour and rims.

thanx...you too

when my parents were in charge of the car, we seemed to have this too; never got above 1/4 temp. for a couple of years we thought it was just a car that ran cold, so i really hope it wasnt running rich or damaging the engine in any way. is this possible?
but anyway, yeah, we had the fan clutch, shroud, and t-stat replaced, and it heats up in no time. good luck, man.

It's the Thermostat sticking open. Happened to me on more then one occasion.

Agree. Fan clutch could be real worn too.

If the thermostat is stuck open, your temp sensor is stuck feeding a cold signal to the DME and the car is stuck in warm up mode which is usually quite rich. This can start to foul plugs and O2s if driven like this long enough.

I tested the car again just to re-evaluate the symptoms...

On start-up/when cold the car idles at approx 1000rpm - this is the stage of running lean when warming up as i understand. The fan is on but does not go into overdrive (speed up) when the engine is reved. After driving the car a short while the rpm's drop to approx 6-750rpm and at this point the fan engages with the engine and speeds up when the engine is reved (even in neutral when parked). This all seems normal however the temperature gauge does not read anywhere near the middle position (half way). After a long motorway drive the highest temperature will only be half way between bone cold and the middle position (1/4), even after the car has been running for an hour. Sometimes it will go ever so SLIGHTLY over the 1/4 mark but will soon retreat within the cold zone again. The radiator does not seem to get hot either. Thanks for the suggestions so far. Hope this will give you a better insight. Adam

like i stated before...the fan clutch is ok..if it wasnt it would not vary between engaging and disengaging..trust us on this 1 ...the thermostat IS stuck open...if it WERE stuck closed you would be overheating!..change it! let us know what happens

So what was the outcome?
I am experiencing the same problemo, but sometimes my car does go to the 1/2 way mark.. (Sometimes)
I'll speak to my machie on monday and get them to check this out.
I have only had my new car for a month now (318i) and was wondering why my other 318i was getting waaaay better fuel consumption. and they're exactly the same except my other 318i with the better consumption has an extra 70,000 miles on it.

I had the same problem until i changed out the thermostat. During warm weather (texas) it would warm up to the normal range. However during winter I'd be lucky if it ever made it out of the blue range.