[Mr. Wyndham]

Originally Posted by bballr4567

Went to start up my car yesterday. The car gives me a warning chime and I think its for my wife not being buckled up. Then, I see the engine light up in the gage (only true GM fans get that one) cluster. It wasnt blinking so we drove it up to the local auto parts store to get it scanned.

P0480. Cooling Fan Relay 1 Control Circuit

To me, that is one of two things. First thing I do is turn on the AC to see if that forces the fan to start. No go.

Either the fuse has blown or the it's not plugged in. Check the fuses. All good. Check the plug that is nearer the driver side of the car and it has a TINY TINY TINY amount of play. Im talking like you wouldn't even second guess it if you were putting parts back together movement. It was clicked in. Yet, I wiggled it and the fans started to spin. Bingo, it was the plug.

I finally manage to get it unplugged and WATER is present. Now, the first day I truly got to drive the car it was raining and I noticed that the coolant was getting up to around 220 which I thought was a bit odd but passed it off because it never got warmer than that.

What did I do? I used a towel to get rid of the excess water and used compressed air, got some dielectric grease and put it all back together. After 5 engine cycles the light has gone off and the fans do start up.

My tip is to unseat that plug and make sure it is FULLY seated.

...

All in all, this took me MAYBE 15 minutes to diagnose and figure out.

Great diagnosis!