Boxster water pump - Laso ?
 

I was checking out Pelican Parts and see they have 2 x water pumps for the Boxster - original Porsche @ $358 + gasket and delivery and Laso @ about $100 cheaper.
Pelican say that Laso is an original supplier - anybody here had any experience with this brand? A saving of $100 is great, but not at the expense of a cheaper pump that is so vital to the running of the car - the last thing I need in life is a broken impeller distributing itself through the cooling system.....

If you do your own work then I'd say Laso should be fine.

I had my Water Pump replaced last week at Porsche because they warranty the parts and labor for 2 years unlimited miles and the last WP(which was warrantied for 6mo by an Indy) went out after 10k and 10 months.

Last set of water pumps I bought from Sunset were ~$225 plus
a few bucks for the gasket. Porsche OEM.

They had them for sale at about $165 a few months back -- bought everyone they had.

Mike

Jake Raby has an OEM pump for sale on his Flat6 site...claims it's the best one he's come across, thus far.

There certaily seem to be a big difference in pricing - I think it warrants some more investigation before I buy, but I must say I have had very good service from Jake Raby's outfit in the past....

Steve, I am in VIC.

I bought my water pump replacement from a seller on eBay. Laso brand, came with a gasket. Brand new for around $125 including shipping from USA. This was 3 years ago. But last I checked several months ago, similar deals still existed on eBay.

I fitted it myself. Took about 3 hours. Or was it 6? Memory fades. No problem with it thus far (which, of course, will no longer be the case now since I have made this post to tempt fate).

I was looking at Pelicanparts and Flat6 and noticed the part numbers differ. Jake's pump has part number ending in -53 wheras Pelican's ends in -55. They are both Porsche OEM at similar prices. I would like to know what and if there are any differences.

I bought a Laso with a metal impeller to replace my VW Diesel pump with a composite impeller while changing my timing belt.

The Laso weeped coolant from the day I installed it till the time I had to replace the belt.

Needless to say I replaced the pump with one from the dealer (composite). Most dealer will give a discount when asked.

When it come to parts you get what you pay for.

Why fool around with such an important engine component. A leaking pump can over heat an engine before you know it, then another engine is needed as well as a new pump.

From what I understand reading Jake's comments, it's not the leaking which causes problems, but the fact that the plastic impeller breaks and gets lodged in the cylinder head; this causes a hot spot and eventually a cracked head.

I plan on replacing my original pump, which will be nine years old with 19k miles, as a precaution with whatever pump Jake recommends.

I'm (nearly) in the same boat as you - car is 10 years old in April and has 48,000 miles on the water pump, so I thought I might as well change it out and hopefully will (should) have another few years of reliability.
When I contacted Flat 6 last week, they wouldn't tell me what make their water pump was, so it may well be a Laso branded item......
I'm still checking prices, so I havn't ordered one yet.

Steve,
Have you tried BWA down here in Sydney? I know they deal with LN & Jake and may have what you are after.
Let us know which way you go...

BWA won't deal with Laso as they said that they have had a number of failures in the past - they only sell genuine Porsche water pumps but @ over $500 plus gasket and shipping. Its actually cheaper to import from the states, including delivery costs !!
After saying that, if a Porsche pump fails / leaks within the warranty period, I'm assuming it will be replaced under warranty. I wonder what warranty Laso gives.....

Any theories as to why Flat 6 would be so secretive about who makes their water pump??

Flat6 states it is an OEM pump so I'm assuming it is a genuine Porsche part and not a Lasko. But there is a part number difference with Pelican's OEM pump.

Porsche
 

can change part numbers just because the supplier and maker of the part changes or for some trivial or important design change. Often the main portion of the part number doesn't change because the function of the part and its compatibility didn't change, just the revision number.

How many hundreds of pumps has Jake seen? Lots compared to the average Joe. And he keeps track of things and may well be on to something about one supplier that makes a difference in longevity.

We already know that the Porsche part has limited longevity in many cases.

My year old PET and Jake's part number show the same part number including the last 2 digits 53.

Also notice that Pelical doesn't rate the Laso brand as high as the Porsche one by their thumbs up rating system. May be for profit reasons, may be for quality reasons...ask Wayne.

Guys, I just want to say something here. I am not taking sides, but simply trying to give this a more rationalised perspective.

I just would like to say that the Porsche warranty on the pump is unlikely to be useful if it costs 3 times as much as the Laso brand, unless Porsche is also willing to fix any engine problems caused by the pump failure for free. I mean who needs Porsche's warranty if you can just buy another Laso replacement and still come out cheaper? And we are not even touching on Laso's own warranty program yet.

Are we certain that Laso is not an OEM manufacturer? There is no reason why Porsche would stick to one factory for OEM supplies. Porsche has two car assembly plants themselves in different countries.

Jake and other repairers - no disrepect to anyone, but is it possible that they simply saw a couple of failures of a pump of a certain brand and got spooked? Who knows the details on the strength of rationales behind what caused these recommendations by workshops? And if indeed they saw many Laso branded water pumps fail, how does anyone know this is not because there are simply more Laso branded pumps out there?

If you think about this from Laso's perspective, they are a factory that has the capacity to make water pumps. They must surely supply more pumps to the auto industry than just Porsche Boxster pumps. If their pumps failed on such regularity that one is being told to avoid them, then Laso would either be out of business relatively quickly, or be improving their manufacturing skills. Are we talking about Porsche's 1% failure vs Laso's 2% failure rate here? A doubling of failures for sure, but not that significant from a single user perspective.

Anyway, just my $0.02

Steve,

im also from australia, let me know which way you go, as i am in need to change my waterpump shorty,
im leaning towards the waterpump kit sold with the lower temp thermostat from pelican parts,
will still be cheaper than buying locally from a dealer here in OZ

dsisco
Sorry for the delay..
I'll let you know the outcome, just waiting on another price, but if you are interested in buying the low temp thermost as well (which I can fully recommend) get the whole kit from Flat 6 - thermostat, water pump. gasket and underspeed pulley if budget allows. With the $A = $US, you can't go wrong.....

thats exactly what i wanted to do, i couldnt find it on the website, do you have a link?

Just in case anyone wants to buy the genuine Boxster water pump (and live in the Mill Valley area...),

There is a sale at Sonnen Porsche - the 996-106-011-55 water pump is going at $216.42. There is an ad in the dec issue of the Excellence magazine.

There's the drive belt, oil filter and air filter on sale too...

Too bad I just bought my drive belt and oil filters AND I just received my water pump from Pelican parts all the full price.... sigh.... could have saved alot of $$$.