|
I am planning on a 3500 plus km road trip this summer to Canada's east coast and was considering replacing the water pump on my 2000 Base Boxster with 93,000 km (about 57,000 miles) as a precautionary measure, based upon the suggestion of some on this site (in other threads) that this should be done as a prophylactic on cars when they reach 60,000 miles. Pedro (of Pedro's Board) has opined that if a water pump aint broke, don't fix it. He has over 200.000 miles on the original water pump in his 986 and specializes in servicing 986 Boxsters, so I suspect he should know of what he speaks. Furthermore, it will take me another 3 years to reach even the 72,000 miles at which AKnowles failed (and forever to reach the 142,000 miles at which grtc-68's failed).
Pedro suggests that when you replace the serpentine belt (as I am doing before the trip), to check for signs of beaing play in the pulley and leakage (even small amounts will dry and show as a white powder on the aluminum). If no signs of either, then there is no need to replace the pump as failure is not imminent.
I know, some have had bad luck with water pumps faling early on and, even with failure of mulitple water pumps. As to the latter, I wonder how many replaced the original pump with a cheaper, non-Porsche pump. Furthermore, if the sealed coolant system develops a leak or air lock (for example, with an earlier failure of the coolant expansion tank), the impeller is far more likely to fail as they do not like running dry, or pushing air! In any event, when I asked my own mechanic if he thought I should replace the pump even if there are no signs of failure, he said: "Yes, some fail early. Of course, I have had some transmissions and engines fail early too - do you want me to replace those as a precautionary measure?"
Just wondering how many here have had an original waterpump fail at mileage under, say 65,000 miles that:
1. Had not previously had a failure of the coolant expansion tank; or
2. Had not otherwise previously had to add coolant to what is supposed to be a closed system (and hence never need coolant added)?
3. Had checked the pulley for play and looked for signs of even minor leakage around the shaft and found none shortly before failure.
Brad
|