audiqtNewb

so one day i was driving home from work and a smell of burning wires went throughout the car, i pulled over when the smoke got thick and popped my hood, when i looked my whole fuse box had smoke shooting out of it, when i opend the b ox i realized the radiator fan relay had melted!
now my radiator fan comes on only when i turn my car off and ive never seen it on when my car is running, when my car heats to a certain point a little cloud of antifreeze gets pushed out of the coolant overflow resivior. would all of this mostlikely be fixed by buying a new relay or would i possibly need a new thermoswitch?

SteveJ_in_TX

<center><img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/13566/newfront.jpg"></center><p>What you have described are classic symptoms of radiator fan starting to seize and overheating your front wiring harness. Your front wiring harness is probably fried now.

Since the radiator fan is not fused from the factory (and if you or the P.O. did not fuse the fan), when the fan starts to seize up current continues to flow to the fan. Car starts to overheat due to lack of radiator fan to pull air thru the radiator. Temp gauge starts creeping up to the point that the third stage fan tries to kick in (that's the one you seldom hear, very, very loud and pulls a lot of current), and then the excessive current welds the contacts closed on the relay and starts melting the harness. So unless you disconnect the battery or cut the cables to the fan, your car is, in effect, trying to commit automotive hari-kiri.

If you disconnect your battery and start probing around the engine compartment, you'll probably find the power wires leading to the radiator fan slightly melted. And if you open up the bottom of the dash on the driver's side, you will find the third stage relay socket and the wiring melted.

Hope I am wrong, but that's what it sounds like.

If the harness is fried, it can be replaced but it is a very labor intensive job and most shops will not even attempt it. I have helped replace the harness in my friend's 5kcstq and it is quite a bit of work. The picture is his car with the junkyard harness in it, the white cable ties are on the harness and it threads back to the driver side footwell at the kostal connectors in the kickpanel.

Let us know what you find...

audiqtNewb

do you think that could be why my car is draining through batterys too

SteveJ_in_TX

What is/was it doing to the battery?

audiqtNewb

all the time and hopefully thats why ive gone through 2 batterys and not because of an alternator, i did think it was weird how the fan would mostly come on after i shut the car off