Water Pump
Replace it before 90k miles, they are known to go out and over heat and destroy your engine. The procedure is easy, and the parts are cheap maybe 2 hour job. For the water pump you can purchase aftermarket from a brand called aisan, its basically oem as the company is owned by toyota
Honestly there isnt many 300's to know if they fail like the gs350's. But its cheap insurance, takes about 2 hours of labour. Because when they do fail they can leave you stranded and possibly with a blown motor. Either scrapping the car or spending thousands to swap in a new engine. I notice this issue when buying my car and searching many dealership histories. Then searching here, I noticed guys were overheating their engines and several destroyed their headgaskets.
Aisin is owned by toyota, when I purchased my water pump you can clearly see the toyota badge was angle grinded off. I have about 80k miles on my aisin with no issues. If the stock oem is close to the price as aisin go for it, but its the same product. I didnt replace mine because I needed to, I replaced it because I noticed many GS's were replacing water pumps and or destroying there engines. Sure enough as I pulled off the water pump pulley my pump was seeping coolant, but it was all getting caked inside the pulleys lip, so the leak wasnt noticeable on the outside.
On rockauto.com the aisin pump is $86 and the part number for both the 2006 300 is the same as the 2008 gs350. So if there failing on the 350 surely there failing on the 300's as well.
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Joined: Jun 2020
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From: QC
Of course, a failing water pump is never good. I'm a bit surprised that it could be a week component on a Lexus but yes, it isn't too big of a job.
But the reason the Toyota logo is grinded off is Toyota rejected this batch of parts. It doesn't necessarily mean it will fail, but the chances are a tad higher than buying one from the dealership. For something whose a failure can be catastrophic, and as a new engine wouldn't be covered, I won't take the risk.
But the reason the Toyota logo is grinded off is Toyota rejected this batch of parts. It doesn't necessarily mean it will fail, but the chances are a tad higher than buying one from the dealership. For something whose a failure can be catastrophic, and as a new engine wouldn't be covered, I won't take the risk.
Of course, a failing water pump is never good. I'm a bit surprised that it could be a week component on a Lexus but yes, it isn't too big of a job.
But the reason the Toyota logo is grinded off is Toyota rejected this batch of parts. It doesn't necessarily mean it will fail, but the chances are a tad higher than buying one from the dealership. For something whose a failure can be catastrophic, and as a new engine wouldn't be covered, I won't take the risk.
But the reason the Toyota logo is grinded off is Toyota rejected this batch of parts. It doesn't necessarily mean it will fail, but the chances are a tad higher than buying one from the dealership. For something whose a failure can be catastrophic, and as a new engine wouldn't be covered, I won't take the risk.
As for the toyota name ground down, its more likely due to copyright. An aftermarket company cannot sell you a product as new, with a different name then the product. But aisin is a huge supplier for toyota, same with denso. Denso cannot sell you a product with different company branding. If you can find an oem for a good price, go for it, but it is the same product. Like I said my aisin has over 80k miles on it.
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Joined: Jun 2020
Posts: 317
Likes: 49
From: QC
Actually, the thing is they can't sell you a part under the manufacturer's brand if the part hasn't been validated. And anyway, a validated part will only though the dealers network. A supplier can be used to work for a manufacturer as can be, that doesn't necessarily mean that its parts which didn't pass the quality controls will be better than those from companies doing aftermarket since the beginning.
I found it at $114 OEM so not too much more.
I found it at $114 OEM so not too much more.
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