You’d be fine driving your BMW without a BMW Radiator Fan. As long as you kept moving at a steady 40 mph or so, that is. Below that, your BMW radiator fan brings an amazing amount of air through the front of your vehicle, sucking it through the radiator and cooling down your engine. It doesn’t matter whether you have an engine-driven BMW radiator fan, or electric fans, they do the same thing: Simulate driving conditions by bringing air in across the radiator core.

BMW radiator fans are usually made of plastic, so keep an eye on yours. If cracks develop, the fan can shatter or break away while it’s spinning, and that can cause a lot of damage to the radiator itself. If your car is overheating, check to make sure the engine-driven fan is turning, and that the fan clutch is stiff when the car is hot. If you have electric fans, make sure they’re coming on when the car is hot. A bad fan relay can cause rapid overheating by not allowing the fans to activate.