P0480: the cooling fan's control circuit has a fault
The cooling fan pulls air through the radiator when the car isn't moving fast enough to do that on its own, and the engine control unit switches it on and off through an electrical control circuit. This code means that circuit isn't behaving the way the computer expects. It covers the wiring, relay and connector as much as the fan itself, and it doesn't say by itself whether the fan is stuck on, stuck off, or somewhere in between.
You might notice
- The temperature gauge may climb higher than normal, especially in slow traffic or when stationary
- You may hear the fan running when the engine is off, or not hear it when it should be running
- cooling fan
- — the fan that pulls air through the radiator to help cool the engine
What the code itself says
P0480 is a powertrain (engine, gearbox and drive system) code, and the 0 after the letter means it is a generic code with a standard meaning.
Grouped here as: Cooling system — Coolant temperature, thermostat, fans and overheating. That grouping is ours, to help explain the code. The code's official family is the letter at the start.
This page is generic. Your car isn't.
A code on its own only tells you what the sensor saw, not what's actually wrong — and that changes next to your other codes. Read this one together with the rest of your scan and we'll work out what's really going on.
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