Ran into a ditch, ac stopped working

I ran into a ditch today, and a little dirt scraped against the bottom right side of my car. I was scared that I may have damaged the compressor but it didn't seem touched. So I went on my way, with the ac on and working. Suddenly after around 10-15 minutes, I noticed that it was no longer blowing cold air. When I got home I checked the fans and noticed only one of them was spinning. I inspected the fans not long ago before I ran into the ditch, and they both worked.

Anyone have any idea what I may have damaged?

Bump. Can a leak somehow lead to a fan stopping?

snakeye said:

I ran into a ditch today,...When I got home I checked the fans and noticed only one of them was spinning. ...Anyone have any idea what I may have damaged?

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Yes: the fan. Too obvious? OK, how about the shroud that holds the fan and possibly the radiator carrier that holds it all.

Or it could be a coincidence, but I don't believe you could convince me of that.

Shake up a fan that wasn't all that great in the first place and it would be easy to stop the fan. Pull it apart and check the innards and I think you'd agree that the motor can't take much shock and have the rear bearing survive well. It could be upset by a hard bump. If you are somewhat electrically and mechanically inclined you can probably fix it yourself.

I'll venture to guess.

The fan stopped spinning because a pressure/temp. sensor related to the AC shut it off thinking the extra cooling wasn't needed. I'm pretty sure the fans don't necessarily run all the time, like they did on Mark 2/3. You may have not hit the compressor directly, but perhaps you jarred one of the hoses or AC components causing the refrigerant to leak out. An easy to way diagnose bad fan is that the AC should still blow cold with air moving over the condensor on the highway.

16vjohn said:

I'll venture to guess.

The fan stopped spinning because a pressure/temp. sensor related to the AC shut it off thinking the extra cooling wasn't needed. I'm pretty sure the fans don't necessarily run all the time, like they did on Mark 2/3. You may have not hit the compressor directly, but perhaps you jarred one of the hoses or AC components causing the refrigerant to leak out. An easy to way diagnose bad fan is that the AC should still blow cold with air moving over the condensor on the highway.

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I think I remember reading that both fans are always supposed to spin on the MK4.

Summer's just around the corner, so I'm back to diagnosing this problem again lol. Does anyone know of a malfunctioning fan can lead to total loss of AC?