How to Tell if a Car's Water Pump Needs Replacement
The all-important water pump, shoots coolant through the your car's cooling system. It's driven by a belt and operates only when the engine is running. Water pumps fail with some regularity--you can expect to replace yours sometime before 100,000 miles, if not sooner, and here's how to do it.
- Difficulty:
- Moderately Easy
Instructions
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1
Park your car overnight and put a large white piece of paper underneith your car. In the morning check the paper. If the paper is wet with liquid, you could have a water pump leak.
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2
If the paper has green (in most cases) fluid on it, there is a good chance your vehicle is leaking coolant (sometimes refered to as "water"). In many cases, when you are leaking coolant it could be coming from the water pump.
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3
Turn the engine off and open the hood.
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4
Locate the water pump pulley. The pulley is the round part that the belt is attached to. To find it, look for the belts. You will see more than one pulley. Your car will have an alternator with a pulley and perhaps an air conditioner, power steering and smog pump pulleys. If you are unsure, ask your mechanic to point out the water pump pulley.
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5
Grab opposite ends of the round pulley and check for "play" (looseness): Try to rock it back and forth. There should be no give. If there is, the bearings are going and it's time to replace the water pump. By the time you can feel play in the water pump pulley, you may also be able to hear the bad bearing when the engine is running - there may be a low-pitched grinding noise coming from the water pump pulley.
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6
Visually check the water pump (it's located behind the pulley) for signs of a coolant leak. If the water pump gasket is leaking, it must be replaced. This is a good time to get a new water pump, too, unless it was just recently replaced.
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Tips & Warnings
Some water pumps are driven by the timing belt, which is under a plastic cover. If this is the case with your car, you cannot easily diagnose a bad water pump bearing yourself.
Water pumps usually fail in 1 of 2 ways: either the bearing for the pulley goes, or the gasket (or seal) behind the water pump begins to leak.
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Comments
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Am currently studying Diploma in Automotive Engineering my question is how am I able to get interested n exposed to new make of the vehicles?
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OMG this is so amazing.
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If I start the vehicle with the rad cap off, and the coolant level begins to rise where I removed the cap, does that mean that my water pump is working or is it just the fluid heating up and expanding?
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my tensioner pully came of from the aircon witch led the belt runing loose took of the belt I hear a strange noise under the hood while driving and idling in the mornings especialy when its cold it makes load noise but asoon when the car heats up in the afternoon the noise go away I thought that it could be a wheel bearing or cv joint but check at some workshops bearing and cv is fine can this be the water pump going one dealer told me the water pump is going any mechanics answer wil help also if I do computer diagnostic scan on my car wil it pick up the problem any answers pls its a honda ballade 160i luxline automatick 1992 model.
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fixing a friends car after an automotive shop got lots of money out of him... it was time to call it quits when they told him his converter on the exhaust would cause it to over heat.... nono bad bad mechanics... well time for the girl to do the work :)
