If the fan won't turn off, you have a bad relay.
If the low speed fan doesn't come on ever, you need a new resistor, unless your car was built before mid-'03, then your stuff is different and you have a lot more reading to do.
Here's the big thread on NAM (mostly for the mid-'03 and later cars):
Low Speed Fan Resistor - we need solution - Page 21 - North American Motoring
And here is what I found useful in it:
Testing the low speed fan circuit:
Many people just try to get the operating conditions right so the car will try to turn on the fan, but operating conditions for the fan vary slightly, so why not just wire the sucker up, as proposed by SHaFT7 in post #358 (who apparently only likes capital letters in the wrong places, so I fixed that):
"For anyone wanting a quick resistor test on a later model, go unplug the fan connector. On the fan side, you should have a black wire (ground) a thick red wire (full fan speed) and a thinner red wire (resistor fan speed). Hook the black wire to ground with a jumper wire and just touch it to the shock tower, or any exposed non-painted bolt. then hook up another wire to the thick red wire connection and hit the battery positive with it. The fan should spin up full speed. Now just move the wire from the thick red to the thin red. if the fan spins, your resistor is good. if it doesn't (like mine), then it's new resistor time!"
Here is a good choice for a PAIR of resistors wired in parallel (you can use a single resistor of a different value, but a pair of them controls resistor heat better):
Better would be two of these 0.68 50W wired in parallel. Much smaller, surface mount - screw onto a metal part with
heat sink compound between them to transfer heat away from the resistor.
29 in stock at $5 each.
Mouser Electronics, Inc.
Mounting locations used have included:
Bolt it to the bumper support next to the yellow hood latch handle. (NAM post #435)
Dangle it from a single bolt (bad, bad idea)
Screw them in to the left side aluminum engine mount bracket (per drozd, NAM post #375)
Mount an aluminum plate to the bumper mount bolts (in front of the radiator) on the drive'rs side (per Vito, NAM post #476)
Screw them to the underside of the aluminum bumper (best best, but likely required bumper cover removal unless you could do that from the lower grille opening. I don't know, yet).
Remember, you need to mount them firmly to metal with lots of heat sink paste to keep the resistors cool.
Electrical wiring of the resistor:
Use 12gage wire. Use spade terminals. Don't ever solder anything on a car ever, ever, ever. Use heat shrink to protect the spade terminals, or silicone where the end of the wire goes into the back of the spade terminal.
No, it doesn't matter which way the current flows through a resistor.
Per NAM post #352 by SeanKidd:
Brown is the common (ground), leave that alone, then there are 2 other wires color aside one is thinner, this one normally goes to a fan shroud mounted resistor then connects to the thicker one that goes to the fan. you are just creating that circuit where it can be reached without service mode disassembly...you can cut the thinner (green/red wire after the plug to preserve intergrity (if you ever had to replace the fan you can plug it in) I chose not to. If you shorted the thin wire to the larger, the fan would come on full power (if EMC was calling for it), but it would eventually blow a fuse due to the amperage since the thinner guage (14) wire is not capable of the amperage(current) of the thicker (12) GA wire. However if you put the proper.33 ohm resister inline, the fan will operate at about 1/3 power (hence slow speed)and the current will not exceed the smaller guage limits and work as designed."
The idea behind this stuff is that the car sends power down one of two wires to turn on the fan. 12V is sent down the larger wire to turn the fan on high speed. Power is sent down the smaller wire when low speed is desired. That smaller wire runs through a resistor tucked into the fan shroud, reducing the voltage in the line before it gets to the fan. In this mod, we are replacing that resistor. When the car then tries to turn on the low-speed fan, it sends current down the small wire. We connect that wire from the car to the new resistor, and send the power on down the larger wire to the fan. If the old resistor is blown, then the rest of the small wire effectively leads nowhere. This is why many people just splice into that wire instead of cutting it. However, I'd rather see you cut the smaller wire, put a spade terminal on the end of it leading to the car (not leading to the fan), and connect that directly to the resistor. So power flows from the ECU or whatnot, down the small wire, to your resistor, onto the big wire, and to the fan. See NAM post #221 for a wiring diagram made by jsf252.
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Nice Jeff...... Sounds like your fix went off without a hitch....
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:cornut: I had similar problems but mine's an R56 so.......no help here.
Jason
Addendum:What was finally done to fix my problem(08 R56 MCS/JCW 45kmi) was:
1. replace computer module
2. replace head gasket
3. replace thermostat
All done under warranty(thank you Lord) and now she's her old self again. -
:cornut: (more info 08 R56 MCS/JCW 45kmi) My low speed fan wouldn't run and within several minutes of shutting the engine off, engine coolant would regurgitate into the over flow tank and then vomit onto the drive way. In the morning the over flow tank would be empty. See previous post for what MINI did to fix it. Yes, she's still the best car that I've ever driven that I also owned.
Jason -
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:cornut: One fan, two speeds. One thermostat, two temps(electronic thermostat that talks to the computer). On my car(08 R56 MCS JCW manual), normal operating temp is ball park 220F. If I turn on max a/c(even sitting at a stop light) the engine temp drops 40F to 180F in minutes. I guess because the computer has told the fan to run higher and has told the two temp thermostat to lower operating temp to 180 F.
Jason -
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