Failed Water Pump at 80K Miles

Last weekend traveling back to Iowa from a family reunion in Minnesota at 9:00 p.m. on Sunday, I had my first breakdown. Just 15 miles after passing the 80,000 mile mark my coolant light came on - red,blinking and beeping. I was about a mile from the next exit so I flipped the heat on high and nursed it to offramp..

The engine was running very rough and I smelled the sickly sweet smell of coolant. I shut the engine down immediately and opened the hood. The expansion tank was empty and the bottom of the engine was wet. Luckily I was only 8 miles from the dealership in Albert Lea, Minnesota, and was towed there within a half an hour..

The diagnosis the next morning: failed water pump and saturated timing belt - both need to be replaced.. the amazing news - VW is going to pick up the tab - under the drivetrain warranty! I had the timing belt done at 40K (when it was initially recommended) and was going to wait until 100K this time.. So other than 1 night of hotel (and four days of a rental car!) - they got the wrong parts in or something - it didn't turn out too bad. I'll pick it up today or tomorrow.

Any other instances of TDI waterpumps failing? And abruptly? In my 92 Jetta (gas) the waterpump would make rumbling noises before failure and started to leak slowly.. Perhaps it's hard to hear under the rumble of the TDI engine..

Nathan Dennison
Indianola, IA
1999 TDI New Beetle

Interesting.

There was a thread about failing water pumps a little while ago. A European guy said that certain ones there were prone to early failure, and he had part numbers. You could consider yourself lucky because the water pump is driven by the timing belt.

Perhaps another reason to replace the pump at the 60 mile timing belt change?

Perhaps the A4's are different from the A3's. My A3 timing belt drives what appears to be a vacuum pump, the water pump is driven by the power steering v-belt.

I read of a water pump failure at only 30,000 miles, perhaps we should change both the water pump and the timing belt every 30,000 just to be on the safe side. Then change out the turbo unit and all the injectors every 60,000. Then the cam and the head for sure at 80,000, along with the injection pump and all the air bags. Someone recently was in a wrech and the airbags did not deploy, so I would fire them off annually and recommend replacement semi-annually. And don't forget that fuel filter either, one fill-up and it can be contaminated with enough water to blow up everything!

Actually, after learning of all the terrible difficulties encounted with the large porportion of VW TDIs, it apparently would be best to simply trade in the TDI every year on a new one, keeping annual mileage below the 15,000 mark and allowing the stealer to perform any and all adjustments and maintenance at all times. This way the stealer would be responsible for all the warranty costs of the major repairs, in particular those repairs that run in the thousands of dollars annually.

With the average TDI owner paying out of pocket costs of around $3,000 for repairs now, the annual trade-in on a new model is the most cost effective method to insure oneself against the hideous relability problems encounted with this sour lemons.

The belt setup on the A4 is stupid. Sounds like some "engineer" decided to recreate the Porsche 944 problem. Timing belt tension is higher than V-belt tension and there is a much greater chance of killing the waterpump bearings prematurely. With a separate belt driven pump you get a warning the pump is going bad, you don't risk the engine and pump failure is not catastrophic.

I had to have the seals replaced on my water pump at 40,000 miles when I replaced my timing belt. The mechanic noticed dried coolant on the engine. You could'nt normally see it because it was covered up by the timing belt cover. Keep an I on that water coolant overflow level.

Oh, and forgot to add I did'nt have to pay for it either as it was covered under the powertrain warranty as stated above.

[ August 16, 2001: Message edited by: Robber ]