General Water Pump Failure

[doblo]

The corrosion protection additives in the coolant do deteriorate with time. I'd suggest changing the coolant every second year, regardless of mileage. Cheap if you do it yourself (it's not hard), and not expensive if you go to a decent independent garage.

In all my driving in 35 years I have never had a water pump fail, probably just been lucky. I have had two Fiats a Doblo and Panda both were reasonable for three years then after that they cost the earth to keep on the road. The man who repaired the Panda said that in his experience Fiat, Citroen and the new Mini were the worse cars.
I am frightened to use the Panda in case it breaks down again before September.

 

[PNL]

The water pumps are crap, same with GP, bravo, punto etc nothing to do with changing coolant.

Thats not very inspiring to hear is it.. might be worth giving an after market part a chance if the fiat parts are this bad..certainly cant be any worse it would seem..

 

[percymon]

Fiat delaer changed the water pump when they did the cambelt on our 1.2 Dynamic - they charged us £24 for the pump (plus vat). Total bill for big service, belts and the water pump was something like £530

 

[udtrev]

I got my Fiat dealer to change the pump when the belt was changed

total bill £292 including labour

 

[richardllew]

My 3 year old Multijet has had to have a new water pump under warranty.
There was a very slight leak, which I noticed when looking for the location of the oil filter.
Water pumps don't normally fail catastrophically, they leak for a bit, then maybe squeal occasionally before going bang.
As cars are now generally reliable I doubt if many people check their coolant levels weekly as the manual recommends, but this might have been a case where a weekly check might have given a warning and meant one less breakdown.

 

[pandasam]

id have the engine compression tested to make sure the head hasnt warped, just in case, it shouldnt be expensive

you could also have a test done to check for co2 in the coolant to ensure the head hasnt warped