sawood12
New member
I've always run old bangers with high mileage and never ever replaced a waterpump or had any waterpump failures. Depends on what these pumps are designed for. My focus and S-Max has a timing belt interval of 100k miles with no time limit and there is no requirement to change the water pump so Ford waterpumps are probably good for the life of the car/engine. Failures are rare. Often disturbing these things can cause more problems than leaving them alone. Why should the tension of the timing belt be an issue on the waterpump and not the oil pump and rollers, idlers, cam sprocket, crank shaft? These things are designed to do the job they do.
Of course if you've been stung by a failed waterpump as 944Cop did then you're bound to be a bit wary - however as no extensive root cause analysis was performed on the pump to confirm the cause of failure we are only left to speculate as to the cause of the pump failure.
Jon Mitchell did post something a couple of years back when this topic was discussed last time and did provide some reasons why it is good practice - can't remember why now, but he is the only person with extensive credible knowledge that has come up with any real reason why. My other specialists have never seen a problem - and they were not new boys- - they'd been working on Porsches for 15-20yrs.
I think if I still had my car I probably would have replaced the waterpump at the next belt interval as the cost is not that high on a cost per mile basis over two belt changes.
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