Fan always fully engaged

I have a 2020 Tacoma and have recently noticed the fan is always fully on. I can’t remember if it was like this last summer or not but with ac on or off it’s constantly on. Maybe it’s just from being so hot out with 90-100 degrees lately. Truck never gets hot on temp gauge and sits right is the middle and is completely full on coolant. Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

Assuming you mean the engine driven cooling fan, check the fan clutch, it is in the center of the fan and looks similar to this:



With the engine off and cold the fan blade should spin easily by hand with some resistance, often when they fail the clutch will lock up and the fan will be difficult or impossible to turn by hand.

 

You may think it's always on, but it's not.

It unlocks and locks depending on the heat load.

With no heat load, it's still spinning, but not at the same RPMs as the engine, it's kinda coasting along for the ride.

When heat increases, the vicious clutch locks up and the fan pulls much more air thru the radiator.

When traveling down the road, the fan is really doing little. The wind from moving is doing most of the cooling of the radiator and coolant.

 

I tried that the other day after some research and it does spin freely

 

I get all that but when I hear it on I can downshift a gear or 2 and really hear it running at the same rpm’s and never does slow down

 

I think it’s probably normal. During the summer I hear mine almost all the time. Especially in the low gears when it really gets spinning.

 

Then it's fine. Most likely just heat soak from the A/C condenser. Many 4Runner people take it as a point of pride their vehicle sounds like a garbage truck.

 

Like mentioned above, when the fan clutch fails it can stay "locked" and you'll really feel it. The engine will lack power and feel weird when trying to rev it up, like the exhaust is clogged. An automatic will shift weird because the "engine load" is sudenly increased. I've seen them pull the plastic fan shroud off the radiator from sucking so much air.
Long story short, a truly locked fan clutch will greatly affect the overall feel of the engine and it's very noticeable.

 

I appreciate all of the responses! And it couldn’t be anything like a thermostat?

 

Naw, thermostat problem would be reflected in the temp gauge reading.. which sounds like its normal

Belt driven fans (trucks and suvs) are just kinda.. noisy.. lots of air moving around..

 

Perfect sounds like everything is normal then. Thank you!

 

FWIW: On a fully-cold start (i.e.: overnight) on my 2014, the fan initially roars pretty loud (fully engaged) for about 30 seconds, then quiets down. When the engine has sat for a while after running on a hot day, but is still warm, the roaring only lasts for about 10 seconds. During even the dead of winter, it does this initial roaring as well. This tells me it's working. In stop-and-go hot summer traffic, it occasionally will start roaring as the truck revs up to go, but it's rare.

I also had another car (not Toyota) with a fan-clutch that did the same thing for 300,000 miles and never overheated.