Quote:
Originally Posted by southernstar
Yes, I have replaced a number of failed water pumps on these engines, although generally with higher mileage. Of course, I have also seen transmissions fail - would you like me to replace that too?
Brad
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Heh, very droll. But it somewhat misses the point. The water pump failing can take the engine with it if things really go bad in the wrong way. If a new water pump was $5 fitted, you'd be mad not to change it every 20k miles or so, just to be on the safe side. The fact that the transmission can fail is irrelevant to that. As it is, the water pump costs more than $5 but it's still cheap enough to be worth considering as a part you refresh proactively rather than when it fails. Not every 20 k miles, but somewhere in the 60-100k range depending on how you feel about it.
Another critical point is that there are some parts that when they fail they tend not to take the rest of the car / engine with it. Actually, the transmission is one of these. It won't really cost you more to replace it when it goes than before it goes because it usually won't damage anything else when it dies. With the water pump, a failure could see you overheat the engine and kill that, too. So it makes sense to have a different attitude and consider replacing it before it fails.
There are limits to this. I've done my water pump because DIY it's not expensive. I'm not up to doing my bearing DIY and it's probably 1/3 of the value of the car to get it done, thus a deem it uneconomical. The fact that I have a dual-row bearing makes that an easier call.