Cooling fan failure

[Robert302]

My cooling fan on my 2014 Mustang just failed, burned the connector. The first fan made it to 70k miles and now that the car has 128k the 2nd fan failed. Like clockwork almost 70k miles later. I am wondering if there is some design flaw or am I working it too hard and need to upgrade. I have a roush stage 1 supercharger with roush tune, I live in the desert and run the ac all the time. The car doesn’t overheat but I am a little concerned that I didn’t get 100k miles out of either fan and they failed the exact same way. I have owned the car since new, replaced the coolant and all hoses, put the supercharger on at 53k miles. The replacement fan was a Ford OEM fan, I maintain the car with OEM parts. Is it worth upgrading the fan if it is not overheating and has anyone else ran into this issue?

 

[Robert Larimer]

My cooling fan on my 2014 Mustang just failed, burned the connector. The first fan made it to 70k miles and now that the car has 128k the 2nd fan failed. Like clockwork almost 70k miles later. I am wondering if there is some design flaw or am I working it too hard and need to upgrade. I have a roush stage 1 supercharger with roush tune, I live in the desert and run the ac all the time. The car doesn’t overheat but I am a little concerned that I didn’t get 100k miles out of either fan and they failed the exact same way. I have owned the car since new, replaced the coolant and all hoses, put the supercharger on at 53k miles. The replacement fan was a Ford OEM fan, I maintain the car with OEM parts. Is it worth upgrading the fan if it is not overheating and has anyone else ran into this issue?

Ford does not make cooling fans. They rebrand the fans of others. I personally think that many aftermarket fans are better. The low speed resistor the OEM uses is a joke. I replaced my OEM with one from Amazon and it is quieter and moves more air than my original which was noisy and squeaking after only 35,000 miles. It has a proper ceramic resistor too. I am in Florida and use my AC most of the time too.

 

[JC SSP]

I replaced the one on my 05’ GT with a new Ford GT500. Works perfect.

 

[Robert302]

Was the connector the same and how many miles do you have on the GT500 fan

 

[JC SSP]

I had 100k on the stock one and replaced it with the GT500 as an upgraded. I have about 20k and no issues. Plug in and play. My fan settings are tweaked because of 170 degree thermostat.

Still have the stock one at my warehouse. Worked perfectly when removed.

 

[Robert302]

Seems like you had better luck than me, when I replaced the fan the first time I replaced the pigtail because it was burned up. The pigtail was heavier duty than stock, larger gauge wire. I thought I would get a longer life out of it. I have debated treating it like an airplane high time item and swapping it out every 50k. I would like to just replace it once and be done, for at least 100k miles. I was thinking maybe the combination of having the supercharger and living in the desert but I thought if it was inadequate it would overheat. It doesn’t overheat, only when the first fan failed did it overheat, this time I caught it before it got out of normal range.

 

[JC SSP]

I am in Miami florida so super hot temps and that’s why I upgraded.

I would check the voltage readings on both high & low fan settings and compare them with stock specs.

 

[Dino Dino Bambino]

I have a roush stage 1 supercharger with roush tune, I live in the desert and run the ac all the time.

You're simply working the fan a lot harder than the average guy.
Living in a hot climate combined with the extra heat produced by the supercharged engine will tax any cooling system.
As others have suggested, a GT500 fan is your best solution. It's a plug ' play upgrade that was designed for your type of use. The part no. is M-8C607-MSVT.

 

[Pentalab]

I am in Miami Florida so super hot temps and that’s why I upgraded.

I would check the voltage readings on both high & low fan settings and compare them with stock specs.

IF the fan burns up, it's cuz either the magnet wire they used for the motor is not big enough gauge, and / or the insulation is junk. I do a lot of electronics, and use magnet wire with the polyimide coatings ...good for 200 deg C and 15 kv...and 30 kv turn to turn. Polyester polyimide is good for 225 deg C. I also use teflon coated wire..which also will handle high heat and high voltage.

The only other thing to crap out is the fan bearings...which are usually sealed.

The resistor they use to drop the voltage down is junk. The relay used to shunt out the resistor is also junk.

Mine burnt up, burnt up most of the wiring to the relay....and I had no low speed nor high speed fan. With bad relay contacts, it would not shunt out the wide open resistor = no voltage at all to the fan.

I also had previously installed the 7 bar upper grille....so more airflow. As long as the car was moving it was sorta ok.... but at the time it crapped out, I was stuck in bumper to bumper down town traffic, on a hot summer day. When the eng starts to overheat like that, the entire speedometer + tach light up RED. This is on my 2010 GT...with the small roush M90 blower.

 

[EBABlacknChrome]

Upgrading to GT500 fan is helpful, but also look at the wire upgrade from wireeverything.com Casey is a good dude and has a solution for the wiring. @RocketcarX

 

[crjackson]

Great post. I’m n my 3rd now. I’m going to buy the kit below next.

2005-14 Mustang/GT500/Boss Modified Fan Resistor Pack

STOP BURING FAN CIRCUITS! Introducing the 2005-14 Mustang/GT500/Boss Modified Fan Resistor Pack - a high-quality wiring solution for your vehicle's cooling system. Simply remove your existing resistor pack form the fan assembly and swap in the Wire Everything modified resistor pack, then connect...

wireeverything.com

 

[DieHarder]

Nice touch to run the ground back to the body. Always felt that was an issue with the old design. This should help a lot of owners.

 

[crjackson]

Nice touch to include the extra ground. Always felt that was an issue with the design. This should help a lot of owners.

It’s an awesome and needed mod. I’m going to order one after the new year, and just have it on hand. It will go again, and I’ll be ready. If it doesn’t burnout again soon, I’ll go ahead and install it preemptively.

 

[Robert302]

Update, I got the car home got a better look at it and the connector was not burnt. What looked like a white burn mark on the wire was actually dirt and poor lighting. I appreciate the replies, they are helpful. When the fan did fail the ac not working was the first thing I noticed and while thinking about that the temp climbed up, this time when it quit out of the blue I thought the same thing and pulled over immediately and checked, with ac on I had no fan. I wasn’t going to let it idle and heat up. Today after I was in my garage I was able to idle it and see the fan come on, took a really long time. I was about 120 miles from home and with heavy traffic I was concerned so I stayed where I was until it died down. I wanted the input because if it was the fan which I was almost 100 percent sure at that time I needed to order it asap since it is my daily driver. Thank you all again.

 

[Red-Candy-Metallic]

Although the fan in my 2014 GT was still working (60K miles), now that the car lives in Florida, and I frequently track the car at Test & Tune events, I decided to preemptively replace the stock unit with the Ford Performance GT500 unit. I also purchased the modified resister pack from wireeverything.com (thanks to those who posted this link), which is a high quality, professional solution. These units are not mass produced, so there could be some lead time. In my case, I placed the order on January 21, 2024, and received the part on February 24. If you plan on doing both the fan and the upgraded resister pack, I suggest that you order the resister pack first and then order the fan after the resister pack ships. The fan only took four days from Summit Racing. Swapping out the resister pack is much easier before the fan is in the car. As far as the fan installation goes, there are a few things to be aware of. The stock unit has a mounting point to secure the transmission lines if your car is an automatic. The GT500 unit does not have that, so you need to secure that bracket via zip ties, or some other means. Most videos make this look like a 30-minute job, but it took me a leisurely 3 hours, gradually disconnecting more things in order to get the old unit out without forcing things. After first disconnecting the negative battery terminal, I removed the strut tower brace and engine cover. Next the plastic panel covering the area between the upper grill and the radiator came off. Once the bolts are removed, the coolant reservoir does just lay back out of the way. Removing the top hose on the radiator makes it much easier to remove and replace the fan, you may want to do this just before you try to lift out the old fan. It didn't leak much, but you still should have a pan under the car and a rag to stuff in the radiator outlet. I broke the factory hose clamp (using the wrong tool to release it) and had to run out to the auto parts store for a replacement. The driver's side mounting stud was a little bit of a challenge due to the cold air snorkel. I have a Steeda CAI that I completely removed, but I'm not sure if that's necessary with the stock airbox. I disconnected the wiring harness from the fan before removing the mounting bolts. Once you have the top two bolts out and the passenger side lower transmission line bracket bolt removed, the old fan should come out. Installation is pretty much the reverse. Of course, everyone's experience is usually somewhat different. Once I have some miles on the new fan, I will post up my impression of what measurable effect it may have. Sorry for the novel...