2014 E63S: water pump wear monitoring

[kevm14]

Yeah, this is a thing. Apparently as the bearing fails the pulley will walk away from the engine and eventually the belt will hang off the pulley. This is an odd but seemingly effective way to determine wear. Obviously leaks can occur before bearing failure and mine seems nice and dry. Also, this bearing wear seems quite modest. It seems nowhere near the danger stage. I think this is the original pump, too.

20230521_141200.jpg

This will be an inevitable repair for the car, someday. Maybe by 120k or something. Doing the water pump will require doing a thermostat (which will break in half upon trying to remove from the WP housing), and add the turbo cooling lines because those fail, too and this is the right time for that.

It is a fairly involved job that will probably end up taking most of a day (I think MOSTLY because the turbo coolant lines can be really tricky, particularly for one fastener on one of the turbos). Also the parts are expensive. Probably looking at $750 and that doesn't include a new serpentine belt, a $9 WP gasket if the WP doesn't include that, or any serpentine pulleys if I also decide to do any of those "while in there."

But, if all my shit is original at 99k, then I can't complain too much, right? And at this time, everything seems good....

[kevm14]

Yeah, this is a thing. Apparently as the bearing fails the pulley will walk away from the engine and eventually the belt will hang off the pulley. This is an odd but seemingly effective way to determine wear. Obviously leaks can occur before bearing failure and mine seems nice and dry. Also, this bearing wear seems quite modest. It seems nowhere near the danger stage. I think this is the original pump, too.

This will be an inevitable repair for the car, someday. Maybe by 120k or something. Doing the water pump will require doing a thermostat (which will break in half upon trying to remove from the WP housing), and add the turbo cooling lines because those fail, too and this is the right time for that.

It is a fairly involved job that will probably end up taking most of a day (I think MOSTLY because the turbo coolant lines can be really tricky, particularly for one fastener on one of the turbos). Also the parts are expensive. Probably looking at $750 and that doesn't include a new serpentine belt, a $9 WP gasket if the WP doesn't include that, or any serpentine pulleys if I also decide to do any of those "while in there."

But, if all my shit is original at 99k, then I can't complain too much, right? And at this time, everything seems good....

Well here we are 13 months later (WP not leaking but thermostat is failing open). I think my pulley is noticeably more forward than it was at 99k. Car is at 104k now. I will have to get a similar pic to compare. Good news: I'm replacing it as part of a larger thermostat job. See other thread.