A mechanic replaced my timing and other belts on my 2001 Mitsubishi Galant 4 cylinder today but not water pump. He said the water pump looked good. All the other mechanics I talked to told me they had to replace the water pump. This mechanic said the belts were not connected to the water pump in this car and therefore the water pump was ok. The car has about 100500 miles on it. Is this bad or should I call him back and ask him why he didn't change the water pump. I don't want to pay more later.
no your water pump should be fine if the belt wasnt spinning the water pump then nothing was moving to break or whatever the way you can tell if your water pump is bad is it will leak green antifreez out of the front of the motor and you will see green puddle on the ground but if its not leaking then its good
the reason why we tell people too replace the pump is because all the parts in the way are already off when you change the timing belt so its just a case of good measure and preventative maintenance not too mention it makes a little more money
A lot of times, it's done as a preventive measure. The logic behind it is that the water pump is driven by the timing belt so if you are going to be replacing the timing belt ( a time consuming job on many different engines ), you may as well do the water pump at the same time.
Some cars have different designs. The water pump on my 96 Century could have been done in a matter of minutes. Where as some are much deeper in the engine. Usually, to change a water pump like this is pretty much one more step than changing the timing belt. This is why it's usually a good idea to do them both at once.
Replacing a water pump may or may not be correct, if it's not leaking or noisy then it is still serviceable. The issue is more of a preventative maintenance issue. It will likely fail, and when it does, you must remove all the parts involved with the timing belt job to access it, so you incur the labor cost twice. I recommend a water pump be done at the second Timing belt or around 120K miles, if not done sooner. also the tensioner pulley/s at that time as a safety practice, some engines use hydraulic tensioners that are prone to failure (early mitsu's). There is no way of saying how long the water pump will last, and when it does fail, it's usually an inconvenience.
