Water pump. How much coolant?

I have to replace my water pump. How much coolant should I expect to replace?

If you haven't flushed the system, then I'd plan on a total coolant replacement... That is unless the old stuff is still bright pink, and it won't be. Better to do it now than suffer a lack of heat because of contamination sometime this winter.

are you doing the whole timing belt?

wozxxx86 said:

I have to replace my water pump. How much coolant should I expect to replace?

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My WP is leaking at 83K miles, how many miles on your car?

I suspect it started just under 75k. Now its getting to the point that I need to add coolant every two weeks at 88k. Yes I plan on doing the whole timing belt since I'm into the car that far I might a well

I second the idea of a coolant flush, and fresh fill. (50% coolant in distilled H2O)

if you cannot find the system capacity, an alldatadiy subscription is not too pricey.

It'll take about a gallon to a gallon and a half. The TOTAL factory system capacity is 10.6 liters or about 2 gallons and a bit.

I did my water pump at 79k and timing belt while I was in there.

I nursed it like you did, a little coolant at a time, but pretty quickly a cup here and there will become a gallon a week and then it will just barf all over the place, so do it on your terms, before it's too late and you HAVE to do it.

My recommendation is to actually change the heater core as well, while doing the water pump. (And don't do the WP and not the timing belt. At 88k, you're too far down the road to not do it. You have to loosen the tensioner anyway and it's all too easy not to.)

The contamination from the bad heater core in my car was too much, so after I had gone to all the trouble of the water pump and timing belt with new coolant, etc, I actually had to change the heater core and reflush everything again anyway. Grrr. In retrospect, I'm pretty confident that it was the bad heater core/flux contamination that probably killed my water pump.

From my whole experience, I recommend the following...

• 
  It's summertime, so you can do it this way right now [warning, don't do this if it's cold/winter. If I have to explain it to you, you don't have any business working on cars.]
• Flush the coolant TOTALLY, exchanging for distilled water. You're going to have to do 2 or 3 flushes to get it to completely water (Use the shop-vac method here http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=458814 - it's quite easy, and you'll be able to do multiple coolant exchanges in a short period of time, like an afternoon.)
• The clear distilled water will enable you to fully gauge whether the system is flushed out of all contaminants and old coolant.
• Add a bottle of Prestone or similar cooling system flush/cleaner/decontamination product. Drive the car around for a day or so, going through several cooling cycles. Don't forget to run the heater circuit and get all the crap out of the heater core. You will see the coolant bottle get rusty/dirty/gross again as the crap is released in there.
• Reflush it all again with distilled water, to the point you're confident it's about as pristine clean as its going to get, all the cleaner is out and only pure distilled water remains.
• Now you're ready for the real work. Do the timing belt, water pump and heater core.
• You're welcome BTW, since you'll only be getting distilled water in the face and in your interior at this point, instead of nasty coolant.
• Once you're ready to start topping the coolant back up as part of the water pump procedure, just add straight coolant back. The volume of water you lost replacing the water pump will be about 50% of the volume and adding concentrated coolant back to straight water, you'll be very near 50/50 (or whatever your flavor- I'm a 60/40 guy) mix. Get a coolant tester (or borrow one from Autozone/O'Reily's) and season to taste. If it's too watery, use the shop vac to suck a little out and add straight coolant back. Conversely, too much coolant, suck a little out and add distilled water back until it's right for you.
• I'm going to say I committed a bit of heresy here and went with Prestone yellow. It's compatible with everything, it's reasonable in price, and they will stand behind it. It will NOT void your warranty. (G-xx fanbois, don't bother chiming in.) Mine is nice bright yellow in there and looking good.
  Good luck.