How long did your OEM water pump last?

[Johnnie Walker]

An interesting phenomenon I found on my 95 and also on the 93 was that they failed without any leakage or cooling problems. The design, at least on the OEM ones, was such that when the bearing went bad, the impeller would rub on the inner wall of the pump, allowing only a little play but a lot of noise. Eventually the impeller chews away at the pump wall and the play gets bad enough to kill the seal, but it can take a while. I went for a good long time on the 95 thinking that the piston slap had gotten a bit worse, and found the bad pump only by feeling for it.

All of which is a warning to yank on the pulley every once in a while to catch wear before it catches you.

Well, I found out the semi-hard way, it was bad enough that it pushed the belt off and it got half-chewed up by the mech. fan.

 

[Vanimal]

217k on my 91. certainly looked original.

 

[nfletche]

I have right around 180,000 miles on my 2000 XJ and have never replaced the water pump. Still stays cool just fine, even driving through some pretty rough places in the Smoky mountains last month.

Actually, to be honest, besides routine maintenance (brakes, plugs, etc.) I have yet to have any major problems with my XJ at all... knock on wood

 

[greenlawnjeeper]

Holy smokes. Mine in my '96 died about 4 years ago with about 60K miles. The replacement started leaking yesterday. I'm going now to search for the best name replacment - so I don't have to do this job again! The vehicle has 89K miles on it now.

 

[Vanimal]

probably because it sits so long the seals dry out.

 

[CharlesS]

I already had the radiator out for a thorough cleaning so it was the perfect time to replace the pump too.
The waterpump on the '98 was OEM with 98K and there was dampness at the weep hole.

 

[greenlawnjeeper]

probably because it sits so long the seals dry out.

If you are referring to my vehicle, even though it has lowmileage, it gets used every day. I checked my records and it was 5 years ago I put a AC Delco pump in. I was under the car yesterday and there is a chance it was the lower hose going into the engine. I tightened it up a bit and there were drip/stain marks on the hose ( which was also replaced 5 years ago when I did the pump). I have my fingers crossed because I really don't want to do the pump again.