Your electric fans should come on when the engine is getting hot, especially in stop and go traffic as well as when the a/c is turned on.
When cold, the fan will spin a little with little resistance, when hot and the engine off, there should be a lot of resistance when trying to spin the fan.

 

Update: My fan clutch was gone. I changed it but I was still getting slow reaction. I took the old thermostat out and put it in hot water with a new thermostat. The new one quickly started to open at 88C as designed. The old one just started opening a few degrees higher and never fully opened. Installed the new thermostat , filled the system with fresh coolant and I was back in business.

The fan definitely generates more noise with the new clutch.

The best part of it was the puzzled look on my wife's face when she saw me in the kitchen boiling some car parts with a candy thermometer while describing what I was doing to someone on the phone.

 

I just started experiencing abnormal temps. I have the ultra gauge and noticed yesterday that it was getting up to 220 range in stop/go traffic. Since I've owned it, it's been 197 on the freeway and 203 to 206 in stop/go traffic.

When you speak of the fan clutch, are you just talking about the circular fan and as in the blades are broke? I've searched around and can't find any other articles on this. The T-stat is only about 1 year old also and had a flush and fill when the new T-stat went in.

 

There are many many threads about Rovers and high temperatures. But what I think you're asking is whether the fan and its clutch are one and the same. They are not. There is a viscous clutch bolted to the front of the engine that turns the fan. It spins slower at highway speeds, since there is plenty of air being forced through the front of the vehicle by its own forward motion.
When this clutch fails, it either seizes up, causing the fan to spin constantly, or it will spin in "neutral," barely moving the fan at all. Try to spin it by hand, with the engine off of course. It should turn, but with some resistance. (It has been variously described as "feeling like it's full of peanut butter.") You also have two electric fans behind the grille that should turn on automatically when the AC is on, or when the engine temp reaches 212 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

Thanks for the reply Mike,

I forgot to mention that yesterday I checked the coolant level and it was a bit low. I topped it off and this is the second time in a period of 6 months I've had to top it off. I will be doing a pressure check on the system to see where the leak is and will probably have a flow test done on the rad.

I took it out again this morning and the temp was acting a bit more normal. An honest 197.6 at highway speeds and hovering around 203 when idle. I let it sit for 5 minutes in the drive and it stuck at around 210. This wasn't the case yesterday when it was hitting 220 city driving (30-40mph).

I'll peel off the cover plate and do the hand spin test on the fan to see if it's as you described. I wanted to diagnose this as I'm ordering some fill plugs for the differentials (swapping out fluids in them and transfer case) and if I had this fan clutch to replace, thought I'd order it up also.

 

You're welcome! A few other things to think about: there could be some air trapped in the system. There were a few threads about "burping" the air out. If your water pump has seen 60-80k miles, it might be time to replace that as well. (The clutch and water pump tend to fail around the same time.) Depending on your mileage it may also be time for another flush-n-fill. Better to get this under control while you have a few months of cold, A/C-less weather.