Cooling fan replacement

Hi all,

I have been having a coolant leak on my Mark 8 for about a month now. I can fill the resevoir and the same or next day, it's telling me I have low engine coolant. Sometimes my heater won't work for the first 10 or 15 minutes and usually when this happens, the thermostat will stay on C for an unusually long time and then rapidly rise to the mid or higher level of the normal range. My engine has never overheated but the thermostat does rise higher than usual but stays within the normal range.

So I had the dealership look at it and they told me that there is no leak and that my cooling fan is an after marker part (which is news to me, i've had the car for slightly over a year) and it's smaller than it should be. They say the fan isn't cooling down the coolant enough and as a result, it is heating up so much that the coolant is being forced out of the top of the resevoir. They want to charge me $900 to fix it.

Does anyone have any thoughts about this? Is $900 too much to pay for that kind of work? Is there somewhere online I can find the part and just pay a private garage to install it? Any help is appreciated.

Jay

forgot to mention it's a '95

I would check the local salvage yards for a replacement. Also, there could be air in the cooling system that could cause over heating.