waterpumps, many brands and prices

I came across many water pump brands and prices are all over the in range. They go out as early as 20k and last to 70k. Why do these water pumps on these cars go out so earlier anywhy? Quality, I cannot get an answer to the truth of worst to best water pump to buy. Please don't tell me if you pay more you get a better one. If water pumps generally goes out around 50K miles why not go with the cheapest? Cheapies just gotta last as long as overpriced ones. What is the difference between brass, metal, or composite, plastic, anyway? With all the smarts and engineering Porsche does on their cars, why are mechanically defective on longevity? Parts breaking down. So what sould I buy to install myself? What is the consensus? Why pay for orininal Porsche ones, they don't make them anyway. Throw the Porsche name on it and sell it like it's perfect. Please help give me insight here. Thank you. I am starting to think Porsche hired Barnum as their spokesman. Bullet proof cars, yea right. I just bought a 2008 Porsche Cayman base 5 spd with 77k for $19,000. In the last 2 years the previous owners sunk $13,500 of many major repairs. Waterpump being one of them at a cost of $1151.93 at 69,949 mies at iAUTOHAUS Tempe, Az. They did not say what brand of water pump was installed. For all we know it could have been the $50 one. I hope it's a good one, but whats a good one? They did not list the brand on invoice. On any invoice I see no brand names listed for any thing not even sparkplugs. Just a lot of superlative words that means bullshit for extra $$$$$$$. And why do batteries go bad so quickly? That's another story. I checked mine and the battery fluid was a quart low. Invoice said they checked all fluids. Yea, right. Sorry,but it's Monday morning.

If the car is serviced at a dealer, then the invoice should have the OEM Porsche part numbers on them. For example, a 987.1 base water pump lists for about $438 part 997-106-011-06. Not much point in complaining about the cost of parts. It doesn't matter if the car is worth $2. The parts are parts for what was once a $50,000 car. For batteries, read the battery parts of the FAQ. Do a search, they go bad quickly. Lots of complaints about that. Lots of parasitic drains using non-AGM batteries. I learned, I guess we learned, if the car is not being driven, leave it on a tender.

My water pump puked around 80,000 miles, 08 Caysman S. The internet will tell you to buy the OE one with a plastic impeller for $500. I gambled and went with a steel impeller one for maybe $150 ?? They say that the steel one will chew up the block if it fails. They also say the plastic will crumble and stop up passages if it fails. My thought is, if it drips or makes noise I will fix it before it becomes a disaster as I did last year.

Well my 07 Base Cayman with 56k has treated me well with only maintenance items - I can't remember anything that actually failed. Water pump is not leaking and last I checked (during belt replacement) the bearing felt fine, but I do occasionally think about proactively replacing it. My official stance is that I will wait until it starts leaking, but there is also the issue of the impeller blades shattering, which is probably unrelated to leaking. I have read that there was a bad batch, I think suffix 04 (or maybe 03?) that caused the issues and later ones are fine. Of course my knowledge comes from reading forums, so who knows. Battery - have not had any issues. I think the preponderance of issues may come from people who rarely or very lightly drive their cars. My original battery lasted 7 years and current one is at 5 years and going strong. I do use a maintainer when not driving it for more than a few days. A locked car will draw under 20mA from the battery after about an hour which is in line with any modern car.

You are correct, the prices are all over the map and the quality is a bit more difficult to discern. In my view, many of the cheaper brands are manufactured to a "close enough" spec in terms of how the mfg see's the product mirroring the OEM part. You'll see slight variations in the face attaching to the block, metal vs. plastic impellers, and I am betting the bearing quality upon which that impeller spins. I can't recall where, but have read some of the really cheap ones can have issues with the way the face marries to the block (in a sub optimal manner) where some creative gasket solutions may be needed. For the non-OEM parts, or at least the real cheap ones, I am guessing consumers may not complain as much since they know it is the cheapest part out there, and hence, those MFG's are only answerable to a handful of end users. For OEM mfg's, I am guessing having Porsche as you main customer holds you and your manufacturing process to a much higher standard and hence, you do ultimately end up with a more durable product overall. Also the details of plastic vs. metal etc. are made by people who's jobs depend on finding the best possible solution overall that adheres to Porsche's high standards (outlier cases notwithstanding). There is no right answer on this, only what you find tolerable. I know I may be paying more for an OEM part (or in the case of brake pads, those made by an OEM mfg minus the Porsche box), but I consider that "peace of mind" that I don't get from "close enough" manufacturers. I would bet my beloved 987 that the MTBF rates for OEM parts is significantly lower than any of the very cheap ones. Not sure how I could measure that, but experience has more often punished my "on the cheap" buying ways than rewarded them in the past.

Danschy - In my 987.1, during each track inspection by Porsche, I was told I had a "weeping" water pump which indicated eventual failure somewhere down the road. Like you, I was waiting to see some form of actual leaking or coolant loss before replacing. A year and a half later after Porsche made this call (and repeated later), it never came to pass before I sold the car. I was going to replace it myself before selling, but never got around to ordering the parts etc. because it was never really an issue to anyone but Porsche! I trust their parts, but their service writers are another thing all together!

Yeah, this reminds me of my many year career with a major US electronics firm who made parts for the big-three auto companies as well as sold things under our own brand name. There was a world of difference in quality. Big-three quality teams had huge hammers to beat on our heads, so those products were way better than our own branded stuff. I'm sure some of the quality initiatives of the big-three trickled down onto our company branded products, but the gulf was still pretty large.

in my maintenance & replacement exercise last month, I documented the state of the items on my almost 10 year old car. https://www.planet-9.com/987-cayman...100-000-kms-60k-miles-water-pump-belts-tensioner-condition-9a1.html#post2127635 I decided to go with original parts for all items including the belt. Hopefully they last another 10 years without me having to worry about sub standard parts. however I have used OEM/Mahle/Audi parts for other items (non engine/transmission related) like cabin filters, boot/bonnet struts, door locks