Water Pump Replacement - How long?

I need to replace my water pump and was considering doing it myself. There are a few decent articles online and wondered if anyone has experience of doing this and knows approximately how long it takes, and can enlighten me on any tricky areas? I had an independent shop quote me 4.5 hours which from my reading seems excessive for a professional shop with lifts and the right tools? Comments welcome!

I believe 4.5 hours, easily. Just to remove the drive belt you need to remove front engine access cover, behind the seats. You need to remove the engine cover. Draining the cooling system, and finally removing the water pump. Then you need to put every back together and refill the cooling system, which looks like a PITA to get it right. I bet a do-it-yourselfer would take at least a full day. It seems like everything but an oil change takes longer on a Cayman .

Too true my friend! I think fashion won over function with these cars! I have a 987 boxster, I'm wondering if I get things a little easier than you guys. When you talk about refilling the coolant being a PITA, can you elaborate? I know draining has it's quirks as you need to drain then jack the front of the car, squeeze the hoses etc, but I would have thought filling was just a case of making sure everything is in place and then filling the thing up? Sean

Hopefully someone with real experience will reply soon, but from my InterWeb knowledge, refilling the coolant system requires putting the whole system under pressure to force the coolant in and make sure no air bubbles are left. I don't think just filling and depending on the pump to circulate the coolant is sufficient for a drained system..

Check out this article from Pelican .....I plan on following the same guide! There is a bleeder valve underneath the plastic facia where the oil and coolant filler caps are. This will ensure the system is air free. Pelican Technical Article: Coolant Replacement / Coolant Flush - 986 Boxster (1997-04) - 987 Boxster (2005-08) I think that there seems to be a certain 'fear' of working on the Porsche cars, because they are Porsche! IMO it's a cleverly created mass hysteria that they are just so tricky. Same with cost of parts - if it's a Porsche part the price triples, and it's essentially the same parts. It's JUST A CAR and if you are technically minded and follow good instructions you can complete good work.

I changed my water pump on my Chevy truck and it took half a day. It was my first time, so I could have done it quicker. That was on an engine bay with plenty of room and no panels to remove, but on a small Porsche , I would expect to make it a weekend thing for yourself. If I had to do it on my Cayman , I might want to just pay someone for it to be done. I would first spend a couple hours of my time and open up the panels to see how hard it actually is to get to, then see if its worth trying or not.

Thanks for posting that link. The Porsche-specified procedure does indeed include a pressure-driven device that none of us own. Nonetheless, either using the Pelican procedure or the Porsche procedure for drain & fill, it looks like well over an hour of work, minimum, assuming you knew exactly what you were going to do at every step. 4.5 hours still looks about right to me, for an experienced tech performing a water pump R&R for the umpteenth time.

Thanks for all the feedback - if I decide to to this myself I will absolutely post pics/video and feedback...oh and how many times I cussed along the way.

Looking forward to your report!

Yes I'd like to see you turn this into an article for this site (as opposed to sending people elsewhere), one question though, is your car not under warranty? I don't see that you put your car in our Garage here so it doesn't show up with your posts so I don't know, but it is under warranty I would have Porsche do it because you'll get an additional warranty on that part/work, if out of warranty then yeah, knock yourself out and make a great article! PS. Click Garage at the top of the page to get started.... :hilarious: