Water Pump Longevity

[Rob175]

Personally, I would NEVER "proactively" remove a working water pump, for fear that it "might fail". My 20 year old original water pump began leaking two months ago. It was just a slow leak as indicated by a few drops of coolant on the garage floor, it was not a catastrophic failure. Got a few quotes and had it replaced....easy peasy.

[paulofto]

I too wonder about replacing functioning water pumps and premature failure.

I have owned dozens of vehicles over the past 45 years and I can state I have never had to replace a water pump either due to failure or proactively. Maybe i have been lucky but so far my Boxster shows no signs of needing one either (~65K miles). Any vehicles I have owned I tend to keep forever but I do maintain them very well.

[pilut2]

Originally Posted by Rob175

Personally, I would NEVER "proactively" remove a working water pump, for fear that it "might fail".

Normally I would agree, but there seem to be plenty of no warning, catastrophic failures of these pumps. The vanes seem to erode as well. This was not my experience, as my vanes look like new. I am the second owner of the car and it was exclusively dealer serviced by the original owner. According to the service records the original coolant was still in the car. I drained pristine looking green coolant out. Internals visible from waterpump and thermostat galleries show absolutely no corrosion.

[kk2002s]

So in general I have never been a replace working parts as maintenance
BUT
That was before I bought a Porsche.
While I have replaced only a couple parts that failed (Expansion tank, Climate control display, evap canister, purge valves) the rest , WP, Thermo, Motor mount, AOS, Oil cooler 'O' rings I have done because it made sense.
The org. Motor mount was bad so that was a good replace
The org. AOS was fine but 16 years old. I had bought a new as a spare and carried with me on long road trips so after a year or so I just put it in.
The org WP, Thermo, 'O' rings - I wanted to do a coolant Flush and replace so it made sense to do those components. The org. WP was in good shape

I feel with these cars and certain parts that waiting until they fail usually means a tow job, not a limp it home to fix.