Hey alls...

So.. if you keep losing coolant very slowly but cant find any leaks... keep hearing a random belt squeal that you may think is just a belt or idler pulley... etc..etc.. or if your car has over 100k on the clock... take 15 minutes... pop the serpentine belt off and check the water pump and other pulleys for play.

Water pump went on the wife's car tonight on her way home from work. She called and said it was squealing loud and rattling when at idle. She was really close to home and no warning lights were on or gauges were off... so I told her to limp it home (I was at work still).

Got home and started it up and it had a distinct rattle. I'd been hearing a sound for a few weeks that sounded like the direct injection system.. just louder. I kept thinking to myself.. this is a luxury car... you shouldn't be able to here the injection system at idle.. inside the car. Anyways.. this time it was quite a bit louder. Popped the hood and could see the water pump pulley moving a good 1/4" side to side and a small amount of coolant under it on the plastic.

Started calling around and found a pump at a parts store 45 minutes from the house. Got it picked up and swapped the pumps. The old pump had been leaking for a while it looked like... but it was leaking so slowly, the coolant was evaporating behind the pulley before it was visible.

Anyways.. ~45 minutes to change the pump... 30 minutes to refill and bleed the system... over an hour of driving to pick up the part... $120 pump... seems to be good as new.

It's an easy fix with basic hand tools... and it's VERY simple to check. Take some time and check it out... may keep you from being stuck on the side of the road. Would also be a good time to check hoses, belt, and t-stat while you are there. Save yourself a good chunk of change at the shop.

 

Yup 75K-100K its good preventive maintenance to just replace them. Another way to check to see if its leaking is to run your hand behind the water pump pulley. If theres pink slime stuck there, then you have a pump seeping and about to leak further.

 

what pump did you get

i see some pumps for 58 dollars gates on amazon and some for 112 dollars

 

Look for a company called Aisan, that is the brand toyota/lexus owns. Or if you can find oem pump for cheap 90-$120 on ebay

 

I also wouldn't think twice about using Gates as they make quality parts. In my case, I had to use what was available to get the car road worthy again... Which is another reason to replace it BEFORE it fails. You can source the pump much cheaper online then you can local

 

My 2007GSAWD water pump is on borrowed time. The car has 125K miles on it with original water pump.
Will definitely have it replaced before the summer.
Checking the coolant level once a week.
Last week on vacation, the car sat in the garage for a week. Back home, checked the coolant level, the level came down 1/4 inch in the reservoir.
Topped it off. So far the level is still the same.
No sign of leakage. This happened once in a couple years.

 

heres some on AMAZON


heres a tutorial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNkqu9N_V7I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRDZ398PqBg