The term 'fan belt' is the problem. All? cars still have the belt but it drives the water pump, alternator, air-con and sometimes power steering too, while the fan is always thermostatically-controlled electric in 'normal' cars.
My Astra has an electric hydraulic steering pump.
Latest Astra doesn't even have a thermostat, there is a gate valve controlled by the ECU directly.
So what kind of pixies drive your cooling fans? If you car is younger than about 20 years old, they?ll be electric pixies.
Tim
Excepting folk who own ancient rovers and don?t understand the idea that ?for years? = a very long time (but not an infinitely long time).
Name a modern car with a fan belt.
Tim
Mostly people are not running cars to as low a state as they used to.
The modern trend is to pay to have a decent car on tick of some sort, and dump it when it gets to 70k miles or so.
Modern belts will do 100K + and are inspected as part of maintenance.
There is little point in owning a car worth under £500 these days when tax MOT and insurance will be more than that...unless you are driving without any of the above.
Just trust me, bollocks are not generally electric. And no, I've not done a mass survey.
One is electric, one is belt driven off the engine. But bollocks still aren't electric.
Mine's both the highest mileage and most reliable I've ever had - would be silly to get rid & downgrade to something newer with much worse mpg. Cars are able to do ever more miles per life as the years roll by.
NT
Not so. Many much later than that used a temperature controlled viscous coupling to drive an ordinary fan. Which just idles round when not needed.
To provide the same degree of cooling, you'd need an extremely powerful electric one.
When a car is moving, the airflow through the rad means a decent viscous coupling is going to waste a tiny amount of power, unless needed to cool things. And when needed (like say when stopped or moving slowly, is an electric one going to be any more efficient? After all the same belt drives the alternator which feeds the electric motor.
Many of these setups will also have a supplementary electric fan, for the AC, at high demand times.
Were viscous clutches vicious?
I may own an old car, but it isn't my only one. Can't quote my more modern one as an example as it has a mid engine and front rads, so rather difficult to have an engine driven fan.
They are not normally called that these days, as they drive more than just a fan. Commonly a serpentine belt, as they can drive from both sides of the belt, unlike the V design of most pure fan belts.
I've just done a quick Ebay search on viscous couple engine driven fans, and the very first one came up as being for a car made up to 8 years ago.
Over to you to prove no current car has one.
No, fair enough. It?s just a long time since I?ve seen one. Most of my cars over the last 25 years or so have been transverse engine, FWD. It is possible the my Jag XF had a viscous coupled fan, but I never looked. ;-)
The last car that I had that definitely had a viscous coupled fan was a Volvo 240 which always gave a distinctive ?roar? on start up from cold until the coupling started slipping.
Tim
I'd certainly agree electric is likely the most common these days. Not so sure about larger traditional layout RWD from the likes of Jag, BMW, Merc etc. I'd guess the costs of a powerful electric fan and the alternator needed to drive it have come down, relatively.
And the racket they can make when the rad temp makes them lock up. Which doesn't last long. Apart from rear engined buses in London on a hot day. Talk about noise pollution. ;-)
No, its electric
Don't remember ever having a viscous - went from belt driven to electric!
I got £150 trade in for my 1998 Astra F 1.6 petrol estate with 75K miles and full service history. Needed a cambelt when I sold it. GOV.UK shows it has passed its MOT twice since then and doing about
10K per year.
The chain cam on the VW 1.2 TSI petrol engine does break. Apparently all down to VW cost cutting and making the supplier run their stamping machine longer between die changes which resulted in stress fractures occuring in the not-perfectly formed chain links.
Synthetic 'rubber' is impervious to oil. Even more important to use the correct oil though.
Apart from the BMC mini and variants, which had the rad positioned to blow hot air into the neaside wheel arch, did any FWD car have a belt driven fan in front of a forward facing radiator ?.
It?s not obvious. It?s still belt driven but has some sort of fluid filled clutch in the hub of the fan.
Tim
I have an electric car. No belts of any description. No clutch, gearbox, exhaust, oil, oil filter, air filter, alternator, starter motor either,
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