Looking for advise on what to check and test for my cooling fans. Its a 03 Grand Prix, 162,000 miles. Yesterday sitting in traffic on my way home from work I happen to look at my temp gauge and was very high, I would say about 240 or so. It was near that last long line before the red area. Usually it gets about 210 and just over that the fans kick on like its supposed to. It did go down when traffic picked up but by the time I got home it was back up. Popped the hood and noticed the fans were not running. So I looked on here for answers and also google but never really found out why this would happen.
I checked the fuses for the fan and also read the motors could be bad and to check it I would need to jump them from the battery. Im not real good with electrical so I tried that but I assumed I was doing it wrong because I didn't get it to work. Came back on here and saw some peoples fans would run when the AC was on. Tried that next and sure enough within 20 seconds of running the air the fans were running. I take it the fans aren't bad and its something else.
So what more should i test or replace? I also read the relay could be bad but didn't check it because I didn't know where it was, its one of those blocks in the fuse box? I may just replace it. A guy I work with said maybe the T-stat could be bad. I also came across a temp sender could also be bad. Would it be a good idea to start by replacing these all first?
Any other suggestions would be appreciated or if someone also had this problem and found the solution , I would appreciate that info also. thanks
