turbo97se

After replacing the original alternator with an alternator from Rockauto was faulty and my radiator fan came on high even though the car was cold. I thought it was weird but thought nothing of it. Then I drove and got this message:



I continued to drive just watching the temperature gauge. I kept checking the coolant level. I thought it was a sensor issue at first as the temperature never got above 80C when I was driving at 55 mph with 65F outside ambient temperature. As soon as I hit traffic, the car temperature started rising to 100C. I thought I was going to be stuck ... well, one trick I learned was turning the heater on full blast and opening all the windows helped to dissipate enough heat that it stayed around 90C or so .. enough for me to drive the car home even in traffic. Outside temperature was 65F to 70F.

It turned out, the cooling fan had burned out. A new fan from Mercedes costs anywhere from $690 to $800+ for OEM part number A2115001893. I fixed mine for $125 using OEM part from another car.

Here is the original fan Part number A2115000093:



It is a 650W fan motor with 600W motor controller from Temic. Here is the motor controller:


Here is a closeup of the motor:


The new radiator fan is A2115001893 and is an 850W motor and controller. There must’ve been a reason why Mercedes changed the spec and I did not want to risk burning out another motor so looked around for other Mercedes models and other cars (Audi and BMW) to see if there was another that looked like it might work. I found that 2002-2005 Mercedes-Benz W220 S430 S500 S600 Cooling Fan Part #A2205000293 had 850W Temic controller and fan motor. Fan shrouds/motors from other W211s appear to be lower spec for some reason and quite different from the CDI’s so be careful if you want to try to use other W211 fans. They may still work but reliability is unknown. 650W motors are fairly plentiful on Ebay used, but the 850W ones are hard to find in decent condition and there are fewer cars using such high powered fans. I wonder why the diesels need such a high power fan .. I thought diesels were more efficient.

On the right below is the W220 cooling fan. It looked almost brand new.


I took apart the fan from the CDI as follows:

1.On the “new" fan assembly, mark the orientation of the fan relative to the motor using a marker pen (I have added a blue line since my marker pen lines didn’t show up very clearly. The motor and fan are balanced so it you change the rotation, it may be out of balance.

2.Remove the 4 torx screws holding the fan blades in position. See red arrows below:



3.Remove the fan blade and you will see the 3 torx screws below and you can remove these:



4.Remove the torx screws holding in the motor controller:



Now you can transfer the “new” fan and controller to the CDI fan shroud. Below is the completed transfer.



The whole process is straightforward really, but thought it’d be good to have a step by step. This saved me a bunch of $$$ and I have an updated 850W fan motor!

I was going to try to repair the fan controller, but I read on line of another guy that tried to repair it and could not find the appropriate replacement parts to repair the controller so I just looked for similar motors and controllers. Some domestic guys like to use these electric fans which is probably why they are hard to find also.

FCPEuro

Nice writeup. If anyone is looking for a used assembly to do a retrofit it seems most V8-V12 cars 03-08 used that 850w motor/controller assembly. Stay away from 203/209 chassis v8's as they seem to have a 10 blade fan that may not fit in the shroud. Compatible OE numbers for the 220 chassis you used are.

• 2205000293
• 2205000193

--Kyle

turbo97se

Excellent! I just ordered parts from FCP Euro for my W211 - control arms and ball joints. Some of the best prices around for OEM and aftermarket parts with excellent customer service. Also bought for our Audi. Highly recommend FCP Euro to anyone with German car.