A quick search online found that these things were reportedly blowing constantly last summer. Now that a new summer is here, I guess it's time for the next mass die-off!
I rarely drive my car and most of its miles are around race events now. For a couple of months now, I've occasionally had a very mild electrical smell come from under the hood. Despite trying to chase it down several times, I could never pinpoint it. For the last 4-6 weeks, I was also getting a rattling sound under the hood. Again, no amount of investigation could figure anything out. Finally, last night, the car started making a very loud sound from the front, loud enough to be heard inside the car at highway speed and cause immediate alarm. When pulling into the parking garage, the car immediately overheated (245, ouch) and burped coolant. Fans weren't on. This morning, I found the #1 fuse (50A) blown and the fan shorted (0 ohms). When I pulled the fan assembly, the motor would barely turn.
Rather than buying the $80 Dorman 620-139 replacement, I'm going to step up to the $200+ OEM unit. I've used Dorman on my other cars, including a fan assembly on my wife's vehicle last summer, and the quality was fine for a high-mileage family car but no way was it good enough for a track car that sees lots of abuse. The plastic was not as sturdy and it was missing one attachment location, which tells me if they cut corners there, then they also cut corners in the motor.
I'm a bit disappointed that this went out with less than 28k miles. It has had a hard life, but not THAT hard.
The good news is that it died less than 100 miles after completing the BBORR. If it had died during the race rather than after, that would have been disastrous.
I rarely drive my car and most of its miles are around race events now. For a couple of months now, I've occasionally had a very mild electrical smell come from under the hood. Despite trying to chase it down several times, I could never pinpoint it. For the last 4-6 weeks, I was also getting a rattling sound under the hood. Again, no amount of investigation could figure anything out. Finally, last night, the car started making a very loud sound from the front, loud enough to be heard inside the car at highway speed and cause immediate alarm. When pulling into the parking garage, the car immediately overheated (245, ouch) and burped coolant. Fans weren't on. This morning, I found the #1 fuse (50A) blown and the fan shorted (0 ohms). When I pulled the fan assembly, the motor would barely turn.
Rather than buying the $80 Dorman 620-139 replacement, I'm going to step up to the $200+ OEM unit. I've used Dorman on my other cars, including a fan assembly on my wife's vehicle last summer, and the quality was fine for a high-mileage family car but no way was it good enough for a track car that sees lots of abuse. The plastic was not as sturdy and it was missing one attachment location, which tells me if they cut corners there, then they also cut corners in the motor.
I'm a bit disappointed that this went out with less than 28k miles. It has had a hard life, but not THAT hard.
The good news is that it died less than 100 miles after completing the BBORR. If it had died during the race rather than after, that would have been disastrous.
