2001 Cooling Fan Stays On And More... - Toyota Corolla, Chevy Prizm (1998-2008)

What I have is a 2001 Corolla Automatic, base model.

What happened was when I was driving all of a sudden the engine lost power and lights in my dash came on and then the car died and smelled like an electrical fire. What I've found is that the parking lights stay on all the time and the cooling fan runs all of the time as well, no matter key in or out, on or off.

It will start and run normal for a few seconds but then it starts idling weird and the turn signal lights and bright lights indicators light up in the dash only.

I'm hoping someone might be able to shed a light on this situation. I think part of it may be the multifunction switch that controls the headlights and turnsignals, but I can't figure out why the fan runs all of the time.

Any help would be great.

Thanks,

First thing off my head would be to look for shorts in a number of relay blocks under the driver side dash.

How did the engine lose power? Just plain died, ran through a big water puddle, running any extra loads on the electricals? Did the main battery die recently - or did you get a jump recently? When you say the dash lights came on - which lights, all indicators (like when you first turn the ignition on) or just the standard gauge lamps? Smell seems to located in the cabin of the car or do you think it was outside of the car?

The light control stalk and cooling fans are on separate circuits - so I do not see how these are related. Could be an oddball case of a bad fan relay or ECT switch (if disconnected or burned up - the fans run constantly) and you have a separate issue with the lamp control stalk.

Hopefully, like Buurin mentioned, just a blown fuse or a burned up relay. You also have some fusible links that if damaged, are very difficult to find in the maze of wiring. But since you can start the car and it runs - is a good sign. Might want to try and disconnect the ECT switch (fans are connected to this - the coolant temperature sensor tells the fans when to come on). By default - the fans will come on until the coolant temps hit about 200 degrees F - but if you disconnect them, they will run constantly. You can try disconnecting the main fuse to the electric fans to lessen the load on the engine to see what happens (don't drive around like this - just to testing purposes).

Also check the main engine relay - box is on the driver's side of the car, under the hood, close to the strut mount. The engine relay is the one in the upper righthand corner of the relay box. If that is intermittent - the engine will do all sorts of weird things.

A good sweep of the underside of the hood for anything that looks abviously charred, bare insulation, or wiring missing - will help rule out some simple things. Sounds like good old fashing diagnostic work to basically start from the battery and work back to the cabin - will turn up the culprit.

I found the problem! It was the Relay Assy Running Light up under the dash under the airbag on the passenger side. I had to pull the glove box to get to it, but once I found it with a wiring schematic I noticed there was a so-called relay in this location. I got up under there and found the box that is about 3"x5" and it had a hole burnt in it.

Now my problem is that every place I call for the part they don't know what I'm talking about and none of the numbers on the relay itself help them look it up. They keep wanting to sell me the DRL relay that goes under the hood.

Does anyone know if a AB021 is interchangeable with an AB031 relay? That's the only one that they seem to find when looking up the part, but again, nobody has it.

Good info, thanks. Probably easier to hit a boneyard and pull the relay off a donar car than try and get it over the parts counter. I don't recognize the relay part numbers - but if they are siliar to others that I've seen - the one number seems to be for a 9th gen Corolla, the other an 8th gen - as being interchangeable most are not, but there are exceptions.

Yeah, after calling a lot of different parts departments I finally got one where someone knew what I was talking about. This girl was on it, she knew just what I needed. It ends up that Toyota changed the integration daytime running light relay part number from 82810-AB021 to 82810-AB031 because it is an updated relay that isn't supposed to burn up like the one I have experienced. So, if anyone has any of these problems, be sure to check this integration relay that is above the glove box, but under the dash on the passenger side. It seems to be a somewhat common problem if they had to update the part. Thanks for the input fish!

Hopefully this all will help someone in the future.

~Rob~

Bikeman982

Yeah, after calling a lot of different parts departments I finally got one where someone knew what I was talking about. This girl was on it, she knew just what I needed. It ends up that Toyota changed the integration daytime running light relay part number from 82810-AB021 to 82810-AB031 because it is an updated relay that isn't supposed to burn up like the one I have experienced. So, if anyone has any of these problems, be sure to check this integration relay that is above the glove box, but under the dash on the passenger side. It seems to be a somewhat common problem if they had to update the part. Thanks for the input fish!
Hopefully this all will help someone in the future.
~Rob~

Excellent reference information if anyone else has the same thing happen.

Toyota should do some kind of owner notification, since it does not sound good.

Great to hear that you found someone knowledgable and were able to get the relay.