Help! Another Water Pump Question.

[rajivrattna]

My wife's Aygo is from 2008, automatic and going well. We are the second owners. After reading all the "water pump" threads here, I felt obliged to go and check the water pump pulley. It has a slight pinkish discolouration on one small part of the rim, not much. No pink discolouration on the main body of the pulley or the belt . It is definitely the older type of water pump. We have had the car for one month and no radiator fluid loss that I have noticed so far. The level is constant. My questions are,

1. Should I be worried and change the water pump as soon as possible at the dealer (no new car warranty left. It has some sort of Toyotas second hand warranty and how much that is worth, I do not know)

2. Should I just observe for the fluid loss and get the pump replaced when the level begins to drop quickly?

3. Is there a risk for a sudden leakage of a large amount of radiator fluid and the engine heats up and siezes while we are on a longish trip. How acute can it be in real life?

Please advice.

[daveyjp]

If you have a Toyota warranty I'd get it into them - this is a weak point (and not just on Toyotas, a friend's 06 107 had a new waterpump a few months ago, they had to pay as out of warranty) - and have it changed under warranty before it gets worse.

[Uncle Bob]

It will leak at some point as its a design fault, best get it done and better still, if you have a used car Toyota warranty it should be a freebie. Let them see the pink stains and tell them you want it done.

[rajivrattna]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I will visit the dealer soon. I just hope that Toyota certified used car warranty will cover it.

Raj.

[rajivrattna]

Hi,

here is an update to my earlier question. Soon after I posted here the water pump did leak visibly, with red stains on the pump and belt. It was not hard to convince the Toyota dealer that the water pump was not healthy. They changed it under the toyota used car quality guarantee (I love Toyota!). Other wise it would have cost 360 Euros. Now I can relax. To celebrate the event, I bought and mounted reversing/parking sensors. Easy job.