Not exactly happy with that radiator/condenser plastic cover on the Cruze either, first vehicle I have every owned where you can't clean those fins from the top, have to remove the entire front end first. That distance between the condenser and the radiator can really accumulate the debris, seen some loaded with debris clear up to the top. That really can block airflow.
See a lot of stuff that says, do not remove the cover, no user replaceable parts inside. Key reason is they don't want you to see the crap that screwed you with.
Two ways to design a fan, good way is with a wound series field winding with taps on it, ha, even a cheap 20" three speed fan for 17 bucks was designed this way. The stronger the magnetic field of the field winding, the slower the fan will run.
Cheap way is to used a molded permanent magnet field with resistors in series for the two lower speeds, not nearly as efficient, and if the fan stalls for any reason, those resistors are the first to blow.
Many blower blower motors were designed this way, instead of using a large gauge of nichrome wire and more turns to get the resistance, use the thinnest gauge possible with the fewest number of turns. Some I have modified using the larger gauge wire, then they became problem free. Cheapest bronze bearings are used with no way to lubricate them.
Suspecting the Cruze radiator fan is this way, but won't know until I have reason to take it apart.
270 bucks for a fan that is not even as good as a 17 buck fan from Walmart is a bit out of line.
Sure was a problem in the late 70's with FWD coming out, engine driven fans were out, why can you put a right angle drive driven off the camshaft to run that fan? Too expensive, we are going electric. Worse case is in city traffic, engine RPM's are low, alternator output is extremely low, fan current is the highest. And wanted an alternator design, CS series to be exact, cheaper than the older 10SI series. Using more copper and steel would be the easy way, but way to expensive, so had to drive the pants off of it.
Cheapest solution was to install two fans inside of the alternator, you won't see these in older alternators or generators. And whenever there is a fan, is debris buildup, but this was not our problem, was the consumers. Condenser and radiator debris buildup hasn't been solved in the last hundred years, and still is our problem.
Don't blame engineers, either to it their way or won't have a job. I did get a patent on a voltage regulator that could operate up to 195*C without failure, SAE specs are 125*C. This made a lot of money for my company, my reward? I got to keep my job.