A follow up to this post . Back in the summer we pulled off the front bumper to have a look at the wiring in case there was any evidence of a bodge but nothing could be seen and the control box didn't look as if it had been disturbed. Not wanting to go any further my mate said just to box it back up and we'll look out for a 2 speed unit when we can.
This week a fan unit with a gold resister mod already fitted came up on Ebay for £80 so he ordered it and it arrived today marked up as tested so off came the bumper and we got stuck in dismantling and swapped it over. However when we tried it loosely fitted it didn't work with the bumper off and aircon on. A closer look and the aircon compressor wasn't working either ! By this point we were running out of light so decided to just fit the new fan and put it back together to sort another day. Any how I sat in the car with the engine running pressing the econ button on and off whilst the temp was set to 16 degrees on the panel and still no air con or fan but the penny dropped and I pressed the button for the fast screen demist and the fan kicked it and the air con compressor too !
so now all appears to work as it should.
Just need to replace his saggy intercooler O rings that we noticed today and that's his list of jobs done for the time being.