Viscous Fans on Moderns?

[V Mad]

I usually stick my head in the sand when it comes to fixing modern cars, but today I popped in to see what is happening to my Audi A6 (2.5 V6) since it broke an aux drive belt.

They had the front all stripped out to expose the drive belts etc and one thing I noticed was the engine cooling fan was mounted on a viscous coupling from the engine. I had thought that they were all electric fans these days. It just shows that Stag technology is not all old hat. The main difference is the labour to replace the belt runs into £hundreds as it is not very accessible. And still waiting to get it back

[ChasR]

Which model of A6 is it Chris?

But yes, many RWD cars still use a VC (BMWs included ).

[sunnystag]

yep my audi s4 ( 1999 year) long gone and well remembered. Had vicous fan and an electric fan . Apprently electric great in traffic, when engine powered fan slow and weak. But at speed a engine driven fan is way way more powerful.

[edd]

Mine came with a manual switch for the fan in traffic and I think its a good back up. But the question is how much does bolting a fan on the front of the rad stop the natural flow of air through the rad through the front grill.
We could be robbing Peter to pay Paul ok must go to bed
Edd

[wilf]

Mundane vehicles have them too - wife's Kia Sorento has one.

[Escape]

The main reason most modern cars have an electric fan is that the engine is mounted transversely. Which makes it hard to provide drive to a viscous fan. Most BMWs, Mercedes etc that still have the engine longitudinally (for RWD) also have a viscous fan.

Filip