My repair shop says that I need a water pump soon. But my truck doesn't drip any coolant on the ground and the bottle stays full. Is he full of BS?

 

How many miles on your truck

Unless it is leaking coolant , overheating or the pump is making noises
I see not reason to replace it till it fails ... Imo it is BS

In any case Amazon has it cheaper than anyone else . You should replace the thermostat as well

I did it myself . The hardest part was to remove the fan clutch nut , Autoparts rent the tool to remove it

 

Depends on the miles, and if the pulley wobbles.

If it wobbles that is a tell tale sign that the bearing is going out, and it needs replaced.

 

My H3 has 154,000 miles on it and I'v owned it since Jan 2010.

Temp never went above middle of the gauge. At 90K I started to smell coolant when parked and I replaced the radiator due to the popular hairline crack problem at the top of the plastic radiator.

Lately i noticed a terrible grinding/crunching noise when at idle. Not so noticeable when first start but after a few minutes there it was, all the time at idle. I isolated it to the top front of the engine. I grabbed the fan (with the motor off, ha ha) and foudn that the fan and pulley both wobbled just very slightly left right and up and down.

There was never any coolant smell or leaking. Just that damn grinding noise, seriously, it sounded like someone poured a bag of stones into the oil filler neck.

Thanks to the always awesome info found on this bulletin board I ordered a new pump from local auto parts store and replaced it. Sure enough, when removed the old pump bearing was clearly shot, loose etc.

A remanufactured pump was only $25-30. A new one was only $48. I went against my better judgement and bought the new pump instead of the reman. $50, what the hell.

I'm just a backyard mechanic, but I've done plenty of water pumps/alternators/power steering pumps before.

Thanks to the write ups on this board and the borrowed fan clutch tools from O'Reilly auto parts, I did this job in 60 minutes time, no sweat, easy peasy japa neezy.

I'm at the dealer right now, waiting for them to complete the heat/vent/AC wiring harness recall. I asked him for a quote on water pump.

The service advisor quoted me over $400 labor, over $200 for the pump, and that didn't even include coolant, shop supplies, and god only knows what else.

Under NO circumstances is that price justifiable.

 

Just take a look and see if the pulley is wobbling or making noise (indicates that the bearing may be going bad). Mine started a small leak down the engine block. It was not dripping on the ground I just spotted it when I was doing some wiring for the Leds. If not then if it ain't broke don't fix it.