Not posted in a few years but thought I'd post this as I got multiple answers via google as to why my car was doing this.
Symptoms: for the past 3 weeks whenever the car got to normal temp the fan would come on and stay on regardless of how long I drove for, the other day I drove to London (100 miles) and it stayed on. 2 days ago the car started overheating and the screen in the car was saying "Engine overheat, Stop! Owners manual" and the temp gauge slowly rose to high temp in the red. Would happen even 5 mins into a city drive.
Research: the internet kept coming back with similar stories of failed water pump, but I'd had my water pump changed just last year with my timing belt, the next majority result was that there may be a coolant leak but on my car the coolant level wasn't dropping so it wasn't that either.
Solution: Took the car to the garage and they have found the issue which is my thermostat, which needs replacing and that is causing the car to overheat. As this was not something that came up when I was searching on what it could be, I thought I'd post this on here as may help others resolve there issue.
My car is a Mk7 Golf GT 150
