There are a few ways that *should* activate the fan. I looked into that when confirming my fan was dead. The following thread has a bunch of off topic stuff, but if you can sort through that, there is good info in there:

https://xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/...-fan-woes.html

I know it is often a treasure hunt to find the Foxwell features you know should exist. Here is the sequence that runs the fan active test on my 2001 3.0i using my Foxwell NT520 Pro:

You start by going into the BMW diagnostics and do the automatic VIN ID (that no longer works on my car) or manually tell it what model you have.

When you run the actual test by hitting the F3 button to "activate" it will do nothing for a second or two, then gradually ramp up the speed over about 10 seconds, holding it there for a few seconds before spinning it down. Very impressive I have to say.















EDIT - also, I never ever got any codes related to the dead fan. BTW, finally and completely confirmed dead when the replacement fan worked perfectly. As far as I can tell, that Foxwell test sends commands through the ECU to the fan, and you are supposed to watch to see what happens. There is no success or failure signal that comes back.

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2001 X5 3.0i, 203k miles, AT, owned since 2014