I suppose that you can equate not renewing the water pump when doing the cam belt to playing Russian Roulette. If you don't change it then it might fail at some time before the next belt change and it might not. What strikes me as strange is that, although you can buy a belt on it's own, most basic kits come as a kit with idlers/tensioners included. However when you look into the main reason for belt failures it's very often attributable to a bearing having failed which subsequently causes the belt to run "out of true" or slack and that's what ruins it. When you think more deeply about this, because it runs in the cooling system which means that if a seal fails coolant is going to get in and wash the lubricant out, the water pump is by far the most likely to suffer bearing failure. So why wouldn't you change it? It's very common to find suppliers hold stock of basic kits (belt and idler tensioner bearings) but also kits which contain the whole shebang - including the pump. Of course we are talking here about kits for engines where the pump is part of the cambelt powertrain. My local factor tells me he mostly sells kits which include the pump and he's supplying many of the smaller independent garages in the area so this must be what they are all fitting even when they could cut the cost by fitting the more basic kits. I'm sure they wouldn't be doing that without good reason.Main dealer cam bel price £372. They dont think its worth doing the water pump or tensioers etc as these never fail??? I asked how much to do a water pump on its own then. Oh well that could be £550 because you have to do the whole belt job then anyway....... The mentality of the service desk escapes me.
My neighbour goes for some back surgery next week cancellations allowing... Hes been waiting longer for his surgery than I for my kidney repair and that is now booked after 90 weeks, as long as nothing derails it. Neither of us are immediately life threatened but both have been reduced to tears on a number of occasions and in some discomfort. Its awful at the upper end of the scale but as of nothing compared to those who have missed out of life saving surgery and died. Vote conservative? No vote ANYTHING else and accept that tax cutting is utter nonsense.
I was thinking about their - your dealer's - claim that water pumps seldom fail. This has not been my experience but they may feel this way because, being Main Dealers, they don't probably see many older examples. I bet they do a fair number of first belt changes but doubt if the owner of an older car is going to pay what maybe a quarter to third of the value of the car to get the job done? The price they quoted for doing the belt without the pump is not far short of what an indy will take from you to go the pump too. I've mentioned before that I found exactly the same thing when asking for a quote from the main dealer before I did the belts on my boy's Punto and our Panda. I think their menu pricing gets them confused. Doing the belt and pump costs very little more in labour than doing the belt alone but I think they add the two menu prices together to get the "silly" quotes they give.
As I write this I've been wondering how the odds compare between the likelihood of loosing the gamble with either Russian Roulette or taking a chance on not changing the pump. With most revolvers having six chambers, I think, unless this is the car's first belt change, you're more likely to survive the Russian Roulette experience.
Vote Conservative? not the slightest chance of that for the rest of my days on this earth. Trouble is I can't clearly see who is going to make much of a better job of it. For some time I've been playing with the idea that "our Nicola" probably couldn't make a worse attempt - but just of late, I'm not so sure. Have to make my mind up though because I don't believe in abstaining from voting - that's just a cop out.