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Regardless of make and model, the purpose of the cooling system is to draw engine heat and dissipate it into the air. Heat from the engine is drawn to the coolant which in turn gets hot. At around 90° the thermostat will open allowing coolant to flow through the radiator. Heat is conducted onto the fins, and then into the air passing through it. By the time the coolant exits the radiator at the bottom it's lost sufficient heat to be able to cool the engine again. The coolant is drawn back to water pump and circulated again. If the engine gets too cool the thermostat will close until the temperature at which it opens is reached again. If it gets too hot then the cooling fan will switch on to draw air through the radiator. However this should not be necessary unless you do not have good airflow, for example when stationary or in slow moving traffic.
If the radiator is cold when the engine is hot you have a problem, and in which case it doesn't matter whether the cooling fan works or not, the engine will not cool. Changing the thermostat once every three or four years is good practice, and definitely if the engine overheats. In this case the wax in the thermostat will become very thin due to the excess heat and will be lost. The thermostat then will not work.
Hope it helps.
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