Water pump failure.

[DJG]

I noticed a horrible noise coming from the front of my engine on Friday night. It turned out to be the water pump bearing and my car is currently at Reading Audi having the water pump replaced along with the cambelt, tensioners and auxillary belt etc.

I am a bit irritated that it has failed at 77.5K miles, but extremely glad it didn't seize solid and break the cambelt..........

The luckiest thing for me is that a colleague volunteered to take his car on a 400 mile round trip we made last week otherwise I might have been sitting on the side of the M6 with a very broken car.

I always planned to change the cambelt, water pump etc before the 80K Audi recommend for the cambelt change, but have been too busy to get around to it before now...

Has anyone else had a water pump fail?

It certainly proves to me that you definitely should change the water pump when you do the cambelt!! (I know it is always recommended here).

David

[DavidR]

Yup, the bearing on mine went (perhaps less catastrophically than yours) at about 50k - allowing audi UK warranty to replace it and the cambelt / tensioner etc...

[UKS4APR1]

Oh YES! Changed my cambelt, tensioners etc. at 72k, good job - the water pump was just starting to leak and make a bit of a noise.
If anyone else reads this then please take notice, 70k you must think about changing the cambelt and anything else which revolves including the water pump.
It's quite a job but very prudent to do everything whilst you are at it.
Certainly you are wasting your time if you change only the cambelt.

[Dippy]

Mmmm.

I have been vaguely planning to get mine done at around 60K. But with no warranty, I'm maybe thinking it'll now be a bit sooner...

[bjacks]

Glad I got mine done at the 40k then. Unbelievable for the £40 it cost that Audi don't recommend it. Not suprised though

[stan]

Mine started making a racket at 38000 and I had it replaced under warranty.

[sash]

I've got my 40,000 coming up. Is there anything i should ask to be replaced just to be on the safe side then:

Water pump...

anything else thats not in the standard list of things to check/ replace?

[DJG]

Unfortunately the cost is non-trivial with loads of labour....final price was £550 or so with the cambelt change and that was with discounted labour (£65 per hour instead of £95 ).

FYI Cambelt change is recommended at 80K for S4s, but only 40K for RS4s. IMHO 40K seems a bit early to do the cambelt/waterpump etc for an S4, but 80K does seem a bit too high a mileage.

David

[Dippy]

My reasoning is that if the RS4 is recommended at 40K, then a modified S4 should definitely be earlier than 80K.

For me it's just a question of when it is convenient. I've done 45K now and will probably be looking to have a 60K service at around 50-55K. I'll be getting AmD to do the service and will have a RR run done too. Since a DTS is on the shopping list I might as well let them have the car for 2 days and have the cam belt and water pump done too.