₦airaland Forum

Thanks to Democracy, every Nigerian vehicle user smiles to fuel stations today. Even CNG that is being pushed by the government, some politicians or individuals that have skin in the game as cheaper alternative, has suddenly becomes a rich man fuel as well. I mean, you have to convert first before the usage, and the cost of the conversion is beyond reach of average Nigerian car user. But then, the gas itself is not even as cheap as they portray it as a saviour they want everyone to accept. I don't see reason why something that is considered a waste product would cost more than N100 (N50, if I am to be more specific). Some call it propaganda. Few look at it as a strategy to enforce climate change campaign in Nigeria for the western world politicians and loaners. Sure, it's not within the voters control anymore, but there is a way majority of the voters can alleviate the pain which I see them not doing. I am talking about high cost of transportation (fueling) caused by conditions of their vehicle engine cooling systems, mostly intentional. As much as every wallet is feeling it, not all wallets suffer the same fate.

The colder an engine cooling system, the higher the fuel consumption. The hotter your engine cooling system, the lower the fuel the engine consumes. Again, the colder the water or coolant in your engine, the more petrol your vehicle guzzles. I will break it down in ABC or simplest words for easier understanding to every car user reading this, no matter how untechnical or tech savvy you are not, using my oldest car fuel consumption management system (Peugeot 505 V6), with relation to engine cooling system to illustrate. Every Nigerian car user must have heard of a part called Temperature switch, CTS (Coolant Temperature Sensor), ECT (Engine Coolant Temperature) sensor, etc, usually attached on upper part of an engine, radiator, thermostat housing or coolant lines, to control the temperature gauges on instrument panel, instrument cluster or what is locally regard as Speedometer clock in Nigeria. So, every morning before starting the engine for the first time, the CTS/temperature switch on the 505 V6 engine, senses the cold temperature of the coolant and signals the information to the Engine ECU (Electronic Control Unit), what is locally regarded as engine brainbox in Nigeria. The signal comes in form of voltage figures. The colder the coolant/water in the engine, the higher the voltage figures it sends to the ECU. In my 505 V6 case, the average maximum voltage the sensor signals to the ECUs at coldest coolant temperature is 5v. When you start the engine, the voltage signal from the CTS gradually starts reducing from 5v, 4v, 3v till it drops to about 0.7v (mv) when engine has become hot. Will relate it to your own vehicle, incase you still don't understand. When you start your vehicle or car first time in early morning or when engine is very cold, what do you observe? The engine speed (engine sound) usually stays higher than normal once the engine starts running, even though you didn't touch the throttle or accelerator pedal? But gradually as the engine runs for about a minute or two, the high engine sound will start dropping till it gets to a point that you may not hear the engine sound anymore even though it's still running. However, when your engine is already warm or hot, the engine will start and run at low engine speed/sound immediately. You can also observe this from your car Tachometer on instrument panel. Tachometer is the meter or gauge that indicates the rpm, engine speed or how high & low the engine sound goes up or drops down as you accelerate the engine. Again, going back to first statement of this paragraph: The colder the coolant/water in your engine, the more fuel engine consumes. The hotter the coolant, the lesser fuel it consumes. Your engine sound was high at cold engine start because your engine needed excess fuel to start when it's cold, unlike when it's hot. If you manually or electronically inject or put small amount of fuel in cold engine combustion chambers that a hot engine effortlessly starts and runs with, the engine will not start. The 5v the Temperature sensor sends/signals to the 505 V6 ECU (aka brainbox) is a request from the ECU to command the fuel injectors (locally called Nozzles in Nigeria) to inject excess or too much fuel into the engine, inorder for the engine to start when engine is cranked. As the voltage starts to drop while engine continues to run, it means a continuous communication between the sensor and the ECU on the coolant temperature. In other words, the hotter the coolant becomes, the lower the voltage signal to the ECU drops, and the lesser fuel the injectors spray into the engine. I hope this is very clear to you as you are reading this because for you to understand the rest of the article below, you need to understand everything I described on this paragraph first. If still confused, go back and read down.

What's the nature of your vehicle engine radiator cooling fan? Electric or mechanical fan? If Electric fan, how does it behave? Does it start spinning immediately you switch on ignition or it starts spinning when the engine starts? Does it spin/rotate only when engine has run for about 30 mins or when coolant temperature gauge needle is pointing at the gauge middle? If your Electric radiator fan comes on immediately you switch on ignition or starts the engine, then your engine will always constantly run richer (consume too much fuel) because the temperature switch is constantly instructing the ECU to command injectors to keep spraying excess fuel since the coolant temperature constantly remains cold (the breeze from the high-speed spinning fan will not allow coolant/water temperature to increase or gets hotter). So, your engine will continue to run rich, as long as it runs or the vehicle driven. Infact, it's even worse when you are in a journey or high vehicle speed with that abuse cooling system set up, because the natural breeze coming through the front grille, joined with the constant spinning fan at high speed, will drop the coolant temperature even lower than when driven in the city at lower vehicle speed (keeping the voltage signal to the ECU still high). I don't know who informed us the black men that the white Men that built and designed these cooling systems were wasteful and ignorant to what is best for these cars or how to run them efficiently. Your engine and it's management system was designed to be more fuel efficient when coolant temperature is as high as 80 - 105° Celsius, depending on vehicle and model. Absence of temperature gauge on majority of PAN assembled Peugeot 504s have made Nigerians stuck their heads in the sand, with wrong belief that temperature gauges are meant to stay very low. For that, once a vehicle is imported into the country, even before the vehicle is sold, dealers or local mechanics will bypass the factory connections to the fans to keep them spinning constantly, because Nigeria, for some reasons, is a separate planet from Earth and the closest planet to Sun. Even Nigerians in diaspora living in other hot or hotter countries than Nigeria, do visit Nigeria and engage in such vehicle abuse with the Sun-Nigeria hot clime belief system, when same vehicles gave them no issues while over there. Just because you bought your car in that abused condition doesn't mean that's how the car was from new and is meant to serve you here in Nigeria, as intended by the manufacturer. Most cases, our local mechanics do these abuses on their customers vehicles without their consents, because Oyibo man no sabi anything.

Coolant is something I observed that has a different definition in Nigeria from the rest of the world. Most car users in Nigeria see it as something you only introduce in your radiator to cool the engine when it's overheating. Unknown to them, reverse should actually be the case. I purchased my Peugeot 605 V6 in 2011 with overheating issue. After fixing the issue, I decided to run the cooling system with only water for about 2 days, to be sure the issue was truly gone. On the 3rd day, I introduced 1 litre of Total coolant (green coolant in pink container) in the cooling system to see how the system would react to it before replacing the entire fluid with only coolant, as recommended. About 1 km drive, the coolant temperature gauge was already indicating about 70°C, unlike 2 days earlier when temperature gauge needle will remain down on zero (blue zone) until the car had done about 8-10 km before the needle would to about 30°C. By the time I covered 5 km that morning with just only 1 litre of coolant mixed with water in the system, the temperature gauge was exactly at 90°C and never went beyond or dropped below till I switch off the engine when I go to the destination. My point is, coolant boils faster than water. Coolant will warm up faster when you start a cold engine to reduce fuel consumption quicker. When you use only water, it takes longer to warm up, extending higher fuel consumption longer from a cold start. Of course, there are other functions or advantages coolant has over water in an engine cooling system, like rust prevention inside the cooling system, elongation of water pump & radiator lifespans, etc. But to limit it on subject of discussion, your car will consume less fuel with coolant than water. Unfortunately, most coolants currently available in Nigeria don't warm up as fast as one I described earlier, as if they are water with colors, even though they could still be serving other coolant functions. So, choose carefully.

I am not forgetting the contribution of engine cooling system thermostat in keeping fuel consumption low, but I intend to elaborate on it in relation to something else in the subsequent parts of this series. However, I do want Nigerians to understand that your vehicle cooling fans are not meant to run until the engine need them. You can drive from Onitsha To Enugu via the expressway, and your vehicle fan will remain off because the engine doesn't need the fan assistance to keep or maintain engine optimal temperature all through the journey, since the natural breeze coming through the radiator to the engine is enough to do the job. You can drive from Abuja to Kaduna and fan stays off (no overheating, no nothing). Instead, you gain better engine performance and fuel efficiency in the journey, since excess fuel makes engine run rough when cooling system is abused or engine management system is faulty. Even with AC running, the fan stays off most times, depending on vehicle speed, engine model or cooling system. I have personally done the test on my Peugeot 406 V6 in a hot afternoon on highway on high-speed with AC running and the fans stayed off most times (monitored via one of my electronic test/diagnostic tool). So, now you understand why you are constantly changing your fans as they keep failing while I don't. Not because mine is more original than all the ones you have been buying, but because mine barely run. Your fan motors and bearings are constantly running at high speed and burning out, while mine spin only few times in a day and mostly at lower speed. Let your vehicles manage the systems they are equipped with or designed and stop interfering in their work for you don't know better. I understand there are cars designed to be used only in much colder climes than ours. These are the minor or rare cases. In such vehicles, changes are usually made on few parts like the thermostat with different opening temperatures, different radiators, Engine ECUs with different fan trigger speed, etc. A proper modification on such cars can be done by an expert that understand and can interpret the vehicle specifications and match/swap in alternative parts to make the car run just like same model of the car with hotter region cooling system set up with no abuse. There is always a better solution. The issue is, most people are looking for the right solutions in the wrong places or from uninformed people. Stop believing everything you read or hear. Everyone is now an expert on every subject online. You can learn to filter. Only give it a second thought if it makes sense, or at least, feels comfortable, to know where to focus and seek more clarification. I don't know about you, but I won't be comfortable for someone to butcher my car wires in my presence because he sabi pass Oyibo man, with or without my consent.

Of course, not everyone is economically affected adversely by today's Nigerian economy. But doesn't remove the fact that our economy is a mess. To say otherwise means either the person is delusional, stupid or plain stupid. It can be better tomorrow, which I am genuinely looking forward to. But today, it is what it is. It doesn't mean you can't do something about it in your individual lives, especially the ones within your capacity, starting with not to be intentionally wasteful (reversing the abuse on your car engine cooling system). You don't have to, as long as you ok to hold yourself accountable for the unpleasant experience you will continue to have. Maybe you deserve it, maybe not. The information is now out there. Do with it whatever thy will

Ikenna Udeagwu

Well said my brother. We need to be wiser. Those illiterate mechanics shouldn't be messing with our cars any how

Bola4boy:
Well said my brother. We need to be wiser. Those illiterate mechanics shouldn't be messing with our cars any how

Nice one bro, I wish I can return mine the way it was before it was messed up

Worth reading, thanks OP

Ikenna351:
Thanks to Democracy, every Nigerian vehicle user smiles to fuel stations today. Even CNG that is being pushed by the government, some politicians or individuals that have skin in the game as cheaper alternative, has suddenly becomes a rich man fuel as well. I mean, you have to convert first before the usage, and the cost of the conversion is beyond reach of average Nigerian car user. But then, the gas itself is not even as cheap as they portray it as a saviour they want everyone to accept. I don't see reason why something that is considered a waste product would cost more than N100 (N50, if I am to be more specific). Some call it propaganda. Few look at it as a strategy to enforce climate change campaign in Nigeria for the western world politicians and loaners. Sure, it's not within the voters control anymore, but there is a way majority of the voters can alleviate the pain which I see them not doing. I am talking about high cost of transportation (fueling) caused by conditions of their vehicle engine cooling systems, mostly intentional. As much as every wallet is feeling it, not all wallets suffer the same fate.

The colder an engine cooling system, the higher the fuel consumption. The hotter your engine cooling system, the lower the fuel the engine consumes. Again, the colder the water or coolant in your engine, the more petrol your vehicle guzzles. I will break it down in ABC or simplest words for easier understanding to every car user reading this, no matter how untechnical or tech savvy you are not, using my oldest car fuel consumption management system (Peugeot 505 V6), with relation to engine cooling system to illustrate. Every Nigerian car user must have heard of a part called Temperature switch, CTS (Coolant Temperature Sensor), ECT (Engine Coolant Temperature) sensor, etc, usually attached on upper part of an engine, radiator, thermostat housing or coolant lines, to control the temperature gauges on instrument panel, instrument cluster or what is locally regard as Speedometer clock in Nigeria. So, every morning before starting the engine for the first time, the CTS/temperature switch on the 505 V6 engine, senses the cold temperature of the coolant and signals the information to the Engine ECU (Electronic Control Unit), what is locally regarded as engine brainbox in Nigeria. The signal comes in form of voltage figures. The colder the coolant/water in the engine, the higher the voltage figures it sends to the ECU. In my 505 V6 case, the average maximum voltage the sensor signals to the ECUs at coldest coolant temperature is 5v. When you start the engine, the voltage signal from the CTS gradually starts reducing from 5v, 4v, 3v till it drops to about 0.7v (mv) when engine has become hot. Will relate it to your own vehicle, incase you still don't understand. When you start your vehicle or car first time in early morning or when engine is very cold, what do you observe? The engine speed (engine sound) usually stays higher than normal once the engine starts running, even though you didn't touch the throttle or accelerator pedal? But gradually as the engine runs for about a minute or two, the high engine sound will start dropping till it gets to a point that you may not hear the engine sound anymore even though it's still running. However, when your engine is already warm or hot, the engine will start and run at low engine speed/sound immediately. You can also observe this from your car Tachometer on instrument panel. Tachometer is the meter or gauge that indicates the rpm, engine speed or how high & low the engine sound goes up or drops down as you accelerate the engine. Again, going back to first statement of this paragraph: The colder the coolant/water in your engine, the more fuel engine consumes. The hotter the coolant, the lesser fuel it consumes. Your engine sound was high at cold engine start because your engine needed excess fuel to start when it's cold, unlike when it's hot. If you manually or electronically inject or put small amount of fuel in cold engine combustion chambers that a hot engine effortlessly starts and runs with, the engine will not start. The 5v the Temperature sensor sends/signals to the 505 V6 ECU (aka brainbox) is a request from the ECU to command the fuel injectors (locally called Nozzles in Nigeria) to inject excess or too much fuel into the engine, inorder for the engine to start when engine is cranked. As the voltage starts to drop while engine continues to run, it means a continuous communication between the sensor and the ECU on the coolant temperature. In other words, the hotter the coolant becomes, the lower the voltage signal to the ECU drops, and the lesser fuel the injectors spray into the engine. I hope this is very clear to you as you are reading this because for you to understand the rest of the article below, you need to understand everything I described on this paragraph first. If still confused, go back and read down.

What's the nature of your vehicle engine radiator cooling fan? Electric or mechanical fan? If Electric fan, how does it behave? Does it start spinning immediately you switch on ignition or it starts spinning when the engine starts? Does it spin/rotate only when engine has run for about 30 mins or when coolant temperature gauge needle is pointing at the gauge middle? If your Electric radiator fan comes on immediately you switch on ignition or starts the engine, then your engine will always constantly run richer (consume too much fuel) because the temperature switch is constantly instructing the ECU to command injectors to keep spraying excess fuel since the coolant temperature constantly remains cold (the breeze from the high-speed spinning fan will not allow coolant/water temperature to increase or gets hotter). So, your engine will continue to run rich, as long as it runs or the vehicle driven. Infact, it's even worse when you are in a journey or high vehicle speed with that abuse cooling system set up, because the natural breeze coming through the front grille, joined with the constant spinning fan at high speed, will drop the coolant temperature even lower than when driven in the city at lower vehicle speed (keeping the voltage signal to the ECU still high). I don't know who informed us the black men that the white Men that built and designed these cooling systems were wasteful and ignorant to what is best for these cars or how to run them efficiently. Your engine and it's management system was designed to be more fuel efficient when coolant temperature is as high as 80 - 105° Celsius, depending on vehicle and model. Absence of temperature gauge on majority of PAN assembled Peugeot 504s have made Nigerians stuck their heads in the sand, with wrong belief that temperature gauges are meant to stay very low. For that, once a vehicle is imported into the country, even before the vehicle is sold, dealers or local mechanics will bypass the factory connections to the fans to keep them spinning constantly, because Nigeria, for some reasons, is a separate planet from Earth and the closest planet to Sun. Even Nigerians in diaspora living in other hot or hotter countries than Nigeria, do visit Nigeria and engage in such vehicle abuse with the Sun-Nigeria hot clime belief system, when same vehicles gave them no issues while over there. Just because you bought your car in that abused condition doesn't mean that's how the car was from new and is meant to serve you here in Nigeria, as intended by the manufacturer. Most cases, our local mechanics do these abuses on their customers vehicles without their consents, because Oyibo man no sabi anything.

Coolant is something I observed that has a different definition in Nigeria from the rest of the world. Most car users in Nigeria see it as something you only introduce in your radiator to cool the engine when it's overheating. Unknown to them, reverse should actually be the case. I purchased my Peugeot 605 V6 in 2011 with overheating issue. After fixing the issue, I decided to run the cooling system with only water for about 2 days, to be sure the issue was truly gone. On the 3rd day, I introduced 1 litre of Total coolant (green coolant in pink container) in the cooling system to see how the system would react to it before replacing the entire fluid with only coolant, as recommended. About 1 km drive, the coolant temperature gauge was already indicating about 70°C, unlike 2 days earlier when temperature gauge needle will remain down on zero (blue zone) until the car had done about 8-10 km before the needle would to about 30°C. By the time I covered 5 km that morning with just only 1 litre of coolant mixed with water in the system, the temperature gauge was exactly at 90°C and never went beyond or dropped below till I switch off the engine when I go to the destination. My point is, coolant boils faster than water. Coolant will warm up faster when you start a cold engine to reduce fuel consumption quicker. When you use only water, it takes longer to warm up, extending higher fuel consumption longer from a cold start. Of course, there are other functions or advantages coolant has over water in an engine cooling system, like rust prevention inside the cooling system, elongation of water pump & radiator lifespans, etc. But to limit it on subject of discussion, your car will consume less fuel with coolant than water. Unfortunately, most coolants currently available in Nigeria don't warm up as fast as one I described earlier, as if they are water with colors, even though they could still be serving other coolant functions. So, choose carefully.

I am not forgetting the contribution of engine cooling system thermostat in keeping fuel consumption low, but I intend to elaborate on it in relation to something else in the subsequent parts of this series. However, I do want Nigerians to understand that your vehicle cooling fans are not meant to run until the engine need them. You can drive from Onitsha To Enugu via the expressway, and your vehicle fan will remain off because the engine doesn't need the fan assistance to keep or maintain engine optimal temperature all through the journey, since the natural breeze coming through the radiator to the engine is enough to do the job. You can drive from Abuja to Kaduna and fan stays off (no overheating, no nothing). Instead, you gain better engine performance and fuel efficiency in the journey, since excess fuel makes engine run rough when cooling system is abused or engine management system is faulty. Even with AC running, the fan stays off most times, depending on vehicle speed, engine model or cooling system. I have personally done the test on my Peugeot 406 V6 in a hot afternoon on highway on high-speed with AC running and the fans stayed off most times (monitored via one of my electronic test/diagnostic tool). So, now you understand why you are constantly changing your fans as they keep failing while I don't. Not because mine is more original than all the ones you have been buying, but because mine barely run. Your fan motors and bearings are constantly running at high speed and burning out, while mine spin only few times in a day and mostly at lower speed. Let your vehicles manage the systems they are equipped with or designed and stop interfering in their work for you don't know better. I understand there are cars designed to be used only in much colder climes than ours. These are the minor or rare cases. In such vehicles, changes are usually made on few parts like the thermostat with different opening temperatures, different radiators, Engine ECUs with different fan trigger speed, etc. A proper modification on such cars can be done by an expert that understand and can interpret the vehicle specifications and match/swap in alternative parts to make the car run just like same model of the car with hotter region cooling system set up with no abuse. There is always a better solution. The issue is, most people are looking for the right solutions in the wrong places or from uninformed people. Stop believing everything you read or hear. Everyone is now an expert on every subject online. You can learn to filter. Only give it a second thought if it makes sense, or at least, feels comfortable, to know where to focus and seek more clarification. I don't know about you, but I won't be comfortable for someone to butcher my car wires in my presence because he sabi pass Oyibo man, with or without my consent.

Of course, not everyone is economically affected adversely by today's Nigerian economy. But doesn't remove the fact that our economy is a mess. To say otherwise means either the person is delusional, stupid or plain stupid. It can be better tomorrow, which I am genuinely looking forward to. But today, it is what it is. It doesn't mean you can't do something about it in your individual lives, especially the ones within your capacity, starting with not to be intentionally wasteful (reversing the abuse on your car engine cooling system). You don't have to, as long as you ok to hold yourself accountable for the unpleasant experience you will continue to have. Maybe you deserve it, maybe not. The information is now out there. Do with it whatever thy will

Ikenna Udeagwu

I will like to point out something to people out there considering installing thermostat and the fan not run direct .

Most of us in Nigeria buy very old vehicles which have also been badly used in Nigeria sometimes, these vehicles can never function perfectly as factory spec don't let us deceive ourselves. We may actually try to reverse some things but other critical areas should just be left alone.

An example of such area is the thermostat and direct fan connection. Pls if you bought an old Nigerian used vehicle, abeg don't put thermostat. Just let it be. Except you want to replace the engine, transmission, radiator and all the water hose before you put the
thermostat. Imagine buying a car made in 2002 and you try such, just kiss your engine good bye if you don't replace those necessary things first. Even the tokunbo engine you wanna buy are most times refurbished.

I will speak from what I experienced yesterday with my 2005 honda accord. ( 19 yr old Nigerian used car).
In my quest to lower fuel consumption, I installed thermostat. I couldn't even get a brand new one. I bought 2 tokunbo which didn't work before I finally got the one that works. Now, i installed it and my fan reversed to factory settings. Everything was fine in the first week. Trouble appeared yesterday night while in a long traffic due to heavy downpour. I just saw my car temperature Guage rising. I shouted mogbe o!.

It's a terrible nightmare to experience overheating during rain coupled with traffic at night. Bad combo. I opened the bonnet, I saw steam escaping which mean fan isn't cooling the radiator well. Note, I recently changed the radiator fan. Relays are working cos I even have extra relays as backup, no radiator leak as well.

God sha helped me, I parked the car and a good Samaritan helped me get water. Note: I didn't use ac at all o. After the car cooled down, I speedily connected the car fan to direct ( I learnt the trick from rewire as I stay closely whenever repairs are being done)


Now my conclusion: installing thermostat and not making fan run direct is good, but pls consider the condition of your engine, radiator, hose, even, the thermostat you're using may not be compatible with your car temperature settings. As a rule, only maintain factory settings as per cooling system with newer car versions or cars bought brand new, if you wanna try that with 20 or 25yr old Nigerian used cars, abeg apply serious caution . May we not be unfortunate o.

Besides, I'll not remove my thermostat to observe what will happen next. But my fan connections will be direct.


I will welcome other people's opinion as we're all learning . What I wrote here is a first hand experience. Now Imagine if I didn't check my temp Guage or it happened at a deserted area at night na just to say my last prayer remain.

IMHO connecting fan directly is best for older Toyota vehicles but it's a wrong idea for newer models from 2012. It's wrong idea to connect fan directly for cars like Ford no matter if it's old model or recent model. Different strokes for different folks