Poll: Water Pump Replacement

I'm trying to get a feel for the importance of water pump replacement. Thanks for contributing to the poll.

When I bought my car, the previous owner of my car told me he replaced the water pump recently, which I guesstimate to be between 55k-60k miles. When in my possession, I overheated the car and went ahead and replaced the water pump again, at roughly 63k miles and mistakenly with a metal impeller. About 4 years and 30k miles later (roughly), I went ahead and replaced the water pump again, but preventatively. This time I swapped in a plastic pump. I forgot I had put in one with a metallic impeller, so I was pleased to have caught it before it failed. I�ll do the next pump in another 4 years.

Cheap insurance. Every 3 years for mine. Excessive, likely. With how crappy the quality of parts has become, I don�t care to risk it.

You don't need a poll. It's pretty simple: if you don't know the history of your water pump, replace it with oem plastic impellers. It's simple and pretty cheap. If the impellers are plastic (as they should be), and the pump is old, and the impellers start to chip off--- you have a much bigger much more expensive problem to face. If you know the date of the last replacement, and you know it has plastic impellers, you can probably go 5 years or 45kish miles to be safe.

Quotes source post: 20038959

Or even three years to be super safe. I did mine last year and it was a lot easier then I expected it to be. Put in low temp thermo. And with the money saved on labor bought a quickjack.

Mine’s been replaced two times already and I have 95k on mine. Truthfully the second time was when I had the engine rebuilt. My engine now has ~10k and 24 months on it and I plan to replace the water pump very soon. Water pumps are cheap, engines/cylinder heads are expensive. I have several Porsche water pumps/OEM gaskets/LN thermostats/Porsche bolts on the shelf so I’ve got what I need when I’m ready to replace it. I keep the major maintenance items on hand since I know I’m going to be needing them eventually. They cost less today than they will in X years.

I'm at 88k miles and on my third water pump. I did the first at 60k miles. None of them ever failed. The original one that had 60k miles and 15 years of service spun slightly less smoothly than the new one, but was otherwise fine.

I replaced mine when I bought the car (since there was a slight weep). Upon removal and inspection, the plastic impellers and bearing were still in great shape (the car has 90k miles). I plan on replacing it every time I flush the coolant.

Replacing mine on my return in Oct and replace all your idling pulleys while you're doing it, they're components that will fail.

Quotes source post: 20038755

Replacing your water pump every ~5 years is very important so you mitigate the risk of cracked heads. Go to Len Hoffmans website hamheads.com and you can read all about it. It's a pretty inexpensive and no-brainer part to replace in a normal service cycle. Sure, you can roll the dice if you want, but you will regret not replacing it when it fails and you can't find the little plastic piece of the fin that is lodged sonewhere in the head. Same can be said for upgrading your IMSB and AOS. Quite frankly, the M96 is a very strong and durable engine. The problem is not the engine, instead it's a problem with 3 poorly designed bolt on parts that can be easily replaced (water pump) and upgraded (IMSB, AOS) to better made parts. Yeah, and dont forget to run the best oil you can and change it 2x a year. The M96 loves lots of fresh, high quality oil that provides ample lubrication.

Quotes source post: 20038755

Jake(probably the m96 world expert) from FSI/LN Engineering and also the 996 head Guru/repair expert Len Hoffman of HammerHeads, both explain in detail how 996.1 after water pump failure/overheating with broken impeller blades, always results in cracked heads oil/coolant intermix. And thee majority of overheating/pump failures result in broken impeller blades.... Jake posted here in our forums some time back,, within 9 months like clockwork after overheating pump replacement on 996.1, they mostly always end up with cracked heads intermix... If your car is the one in your avatar, then this applies to your 996.1. Fortunately for the 996.2 owners, this is not their problem, only 996.1 suffer from thin head coolant passages prone to getting clogged up with impeller debris and suffering cracks/intermix.... I have a 996.1 and a 996.2, both have had water pump failure under 40,000 miles on both.... 996.2 had missing impeller pieces/damage,,, the 996.1 was just slightly seeping coolant and lucky for me did not have impeller damage.... How'd I do on giving you a "feel for the importance of water pump replacement" ??? jmho

Not replaced yet, but I have all of the parts except coolant. Will do the replacement along with serpentine belt and thermostat