Never had a problem overheating with my 2000 Maxima until yesterday. Temperature was normal and then hit stop and go traffic on the freeway. Within a minute the temperature gauge nearly reached to danger level. Today I ran the car, and then with engine still running opened the hood and saw one fan running and the other not (temperature was fine). I used an IR laser temperature sensor and showed temperatures at the hose near thermostat and on the radiator was about 160F so I'm pretty sure the thermostat is working (unless it got stuck closed yesterday).

Is it normal for just one fan to operate or should both be on at the same time?

I see two fuse boxes that have radiator fans labels on the outside, one to the side of the battery and one in front of the battery. Why would the radiator fans have 2 fuses each?

Thanks for your help.

 

one fan for the A/C and one for the engine. 2 of the fuses are actually relays IIRC

 

Thanks, that makes sense. The fan on the driver's side was on and turned off when I turned off the A/C. Now to diagnose why the engine fan isn't going on. Looks like the fuse is the first place to start.

 

Both fans should run at low speed when the AC is on. (page EC-574 of the FSM). Suggest you get a FSM and follow the troubleshooting section for the fans starting on page EC-567. Has wiring pinouts, component layout, etc. I personally would test the fan motor on the passenger side first thing (page EC-580), the motors have a habit of dying.
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If you don't have a manual, get one here - http://www.nicoclub.com/FSM/maxima/

 

This is from the 4th gen .... But, it's the same as the 5 and 5.5 gen.

 

Only because the quality is a little better.

 

Thanks, looks like both fans should always be on or off at the same time and run at low or high speeds together. I'll run through the FSM tests. The fuses were fine so it must be either the fan relay or the fan motor 2. Hopefully, it's the relay since it looks like a several hour job (for me) to replace the fan motor.

 

yep both should be turning
I never saw mine turning only one on one off.

 

Its not all that bad to change a fan motor. I pull the shroud out that holds both fans. The hardest part is getting the wire harness connectors apart. Those things don't like me.

 

Replace the entire shroud with both fans - if one is out another will be there real soon. The new shroud with 2 fans costs less than $100.

 

That's good to know that the cheap assembly will work fine. I had seen it at rockauto.com for under $100 but was somewhat leery considering the dealer wants $150 for just a fan motor and Kragen/Checker wants $60 for a motor or $300 for the full assembly.

It doesn't look as hard as I had thought to replace the assembly. Just need to disconnect the upper radiator hoses, two bolts at the top securing it to the radiator and the infamous electrical connections. All the connectors on the car are troublesome. Even the relays were a PITA to remove.

Update: Even better, I found the Dorman fan and shroud assembly at Amazon for $77 with free shipping and no tax.

 

The radiator fan went out on my 2k2 (the one on the passenger side) didn't notice it until temps here was over triple digits for 13 days straight (Dallas) the tepm gauge would start to rise but would satart moving and then it would cool off, at first thought it was just low on coolant but checked that and everything was ok there, then I would be driving come to a stop with the air on and blowing cold then the air would warm up. Long story short saw that fan wasn't coming on found one at salvage yard that came out of an infinity with 50k for $75.00 and 30 minutes later everything is running normally.

 

Infiniti > Infinity, just sayin ...

 

Just pulled them out 2 mins ago. Yea, they are a pain to do by hand. I used the tip of some angle cutters to push in the pin, they came right out

 

I changed my fans yesterday for the first time took me about 30 mins to do but when i was disconnecting the hose got burned a bit by some coolant lol

 

This is just f---ing ridiculous how hard Nissan made it to disconnect all of their connectors. Can you elaborate about how you did it? Where is the pin and where did you push? Thanks.

 

Same thing used to happen to me. The two fans are for different things one is a radiator fan and one is an AC condenser fan. When my radiator fan wasn't working the car would rise in temperature but not over heat. When I got that one fixed and soon later the other fan (passenger side) went out the car would rise quickly in temperature if the AC was on leading me to guess that its the AC condenser fan. What I did was purchase the complete shroud off ebay for about 70 dollars and now they are both on at the same time and no overheating or rising temp and the AC blows cold as ice

 

Look at the connector from the top down. it will look like a square with the edges rounded down. On one of the sides, you will see a protrusion - this is the locking tab. Simply press in on this part of the connector with a small object, and it will disengage the tab, allowing you to disconnect the connector. The reason why they made this hard to disconnect, and zip-tied it in like 10 spots is, the last thing you want to have happen is get a cord sliced, or cut in the fan

 

Need the Diagram (Wire Colors) for the Wires that go to the Radiator Fans 1 and 2 on a Maxima 2002. Can anyone help? The thing is that some mechanic try to repair my fans and he ended up crossing the wires so the fans that he work out in some strange way correctly work. (for a few weeks only). Now I have original whole frame and need the correct configuration on each cable. Picture prefered. To do it here. Cant find it anywhere in the manual... Help?

 

^ a few posts up there is a link to the FSM

 

Either http://www.aubreyandcharles.com/ServiceManuals/
or http://www.nicoclub.com/FSM/maxima/