water pump failure

Before my brand new Honda, I owned several Japanese cars with various
mileage (up to 270000 km). All of them with original water pumps.
After following this group for a while, I've noticed that lot of people
replace their pumps as preventive maintenance when they change the timing
belt.
I understand that changing the pump is very easy at this time but I never
had a water pump failure before.

So, are the Honda pumps breaking earlier that the competition?
If yours broke, what was the age and the mileage on the car? normal or
severe conditions?

 

The pump's only about $75. It's cheap insurance to make sure you don't have
to tear back in there again, which costs a lot more than $75 unless you do
it yourself.

Also, should that pump actually seize, it will chew up the timing belt, and
there go your valves! QUITE a lot more than $75.

 

I personally have never seen a Honda water pump fail - although I'm sure
they can and do. I replace the wp on Honda's at the timing belt interval as
reasonably inexpensive preventitive maintenance because they are buried in
behind the tb.

 

They key is that on Honda engines the water pump is driven by the timing
belt. On other cars I have worked on the pump has been driven by one of
the other drive belts. This means that a seized water pump on a Honda
could potentially cause the timing belt to break and thus ruin the valve
train. Also, if the water pump fails in some other manner (not by
seizing) you need to go through the whole timing belt change procedure
to get at it, which is expensive. On other cars I have worked on, water
pump replacement has been much easier to do. So on many non-Hondas you
can drive around with the old water pump until it fails and not risk a
huge repair bill when it eventually does fail.

 

On my VW Eurovan it was a lot more. As in almost $2k more. Water pump
bearing froze, ate the belt, and the rest you can imagine....
YHMMV

a

 

I believe Paul brings up a valid question. What is the actual mean time
between failure for the water pump. Just because it's easy and convenience
does not always mean that you should replace it. If the water pump failure
doesn't fail until after 250,000 miles for example, maybe it's better to
replace it every 2nd timing belt change.

My 91 Civic service manual calls for an inspection of the waterpump @
90,000 miles when the timing belt is replaced.

It's very easy to throw out ideas and recommendations just because it's
convenience but it needs to be backed up with some hard facts.

I'd be curious to get an actual statistic on how often the water pump fails
and what mileaging.

 

If it fails at that mileage, you've probably just written off the car.

 

1991 Civic water pump at 117,000 miles, car was over heating.......
new pump vs. old pump

 

forgot the pic........

http://www.bettendorf.com/~mrbone/pictures/RR/wpump.jpg

 

example, maybe it's better to
It's generally accepted that it's a sound idea to replace the thing when
you've gone to all the work or expense of getting the timing belt replaced.
Sure, push it to 200k and hopefully it won't seize and snap the timing belt.
If it does, when the tow shows up, you can say, "hycuk, hyuck I just got
200k on $65 part, hyuck, hyuck... and now I get to rebuild the head".

 

Great pic. Looks like the pump's fins rusted away..

__________________
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N38.6 W121.4

 

Doesn't look like the fault of the water pump at all, but of an owner who
probably NEVER changed his coolant.

A Japanese mechanic friend of mine says he's seen the same thing a couple
of times, both in cars where the owners admitted to never ever changing the
coolant ("You mean I was supposed to?")

 

I had an Accord with a water pump that failed at about 80K miles.
That was a 1980 before they were driven by the TB. I have a friend
that had her water pump fail at about 40K on her '90 Accord (she used
Prestone.) On that one, the pump is driven by the TB. Otherwise, I
have not heard of any failures but most people change the pump with
the belt. It adds 10% to the cost and is good insurance against
having to do the most expensive maintenance item prematurely. It may
also prevent a catastrophic failure.

 

Yipes. Where did the impellers go?!?

 

==================

In the picture, the one on the left looks like the one I took out of our
CRV at 200,000km (124,000mi), and the one on the right looks like it did
double duty as a turbocharger. Did somebody decide to use Drano instead
of antifreeze ? ?

'Curly'

===================

 

On most other cars you replace when they start to leak. On Hondas when the
bearing is on its way out it binds and overstresses the timing belt which
can stretch it and cause it to skip a tooth and wham it breaks.

I had one go at a little over 70K miles but I'd used Prestone antifreeze at
a little under 50K miles - figure 25K miles of Prestone will bugger the
water pump. I was lucky with the timing belt - I'd heard a chirping noise
when cold and a high pitch whistle when hot and judging where it came from
I figured it had to be the water pump. On opening up, the belt was
stretched and the water pump could not be turned by hand.

I've also changed one at 98K miles along with the timing belt and the old
pump was in excellent condition... after only ever seeing Honda coolant.
Live and learn.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

that is exactly what happened to my '86 CRX. water pump seized,
timing belt broke, valve got bent and broke off in the head, imbedding
itself in the top of a piston after getting slammed around inside of
the head a couple of dozen times.

 

*chuckle*

 

A very good point. Didn't think about that. Now, I'm pretty sure that on my
87 Sentra that had 270000km it was driven by an accessory belt

So how is the water pump driven on the new 2.4 i-Vtec?
This engine has a timing chain and there is no scheduled chain replacement
in the maintenance schedule.

 

I had an 81 Accord that went through water pumps as fast as you could buy
them, about one every 10k miles. They would start peeing out the weep hole.
None of them ever seized. We bought the car with 90k miles and as near as
we could tell the fluids had been touched in at least 30k miles. The oil
came out in lumps. The manual trans had been filled with thick gear lube
(was supposed to be motor oil). The radiator appeared to be filled with
plain water. Once we changed all the fluids to the right stuff, it ran for
another six years, but kept eating water pumps. I suspect there was so much
corrosion and crap in the water jacket that no amount of flushing got it all
out.

Btw - the 81 accord pump was driven by the timing belt, but the pump itself
was mounted on the side of the engine. The drive gear protruded into the
timing belt area though a gap in the belt cover. You could change it
without messing with the belt at all by simply angling the new one back in
under the belt.

None of my newer Nissans or Hondas have ever killed a water pump, though I
did change the pump with the timing belt on the '96 Odyssey at 90k miles.
Similar to the experience of another poster here, the old one was clean and
shiny, virtually indistinguishable from new.

I think this is a valid question. Does anybody know what the design life
specs are for Honda water pumps? It is a considerable expense if you are
doing the belts yourself. The water pump costs more than all the other
parts used in a timing belt change combined. It is a bit silly to be
replacing it "just in case" if it has a life span of hundred of thousands of
miles. (Of course it makes sense if its life is less than the distance to
the next belt change).