Re: V6 Water Pumps

[Alan Lambert <gerard@domain.elided>]

For what it's worth, my '91 164 is on its 128000th mile with no water 
pump failure yet.

On Sat, 31 Jul 1999, Paul Bowman wrote:

> Just catching up on recent Digests when I ran across:
> 
> "My favorite alfa innovation is 30,000 mile V6 Water Pumps."
> 
> Having seen this statement in numerous places both on the Digest and Alfa
> Owner it appears to have become conventional wisdom.  Yet my experience on
> an '88 Milano Verde has been that the original factory  pump lasted to
> 59,600 miles when I had it replaced (with an aftermarket pump) because it
> was starting to weep coolant from the shaft seal.  This month I had the
> replacement pump replaced approximately 56,000 miles later.  I say
> approximate because the speedometer/odometer was inoperable for about six
> months before replacement and I can only estimate the miles that elapsed
> during that time.  The failure mode was the same.
> 
> Granted these are only two data points (although fairly consistent), but my
> question is this:  did the 30,000 rule of thumb come from a few owners
> having premature failures and others then using the conservative approach
> of replacement before failure? Or have there been truly widespread reports
> of failures around 30,000?  Has anyone compared GTV-6 vs Milano vs 164
> owner experiences?  Again what is important here is time to failure or time
> to start-of-failure (as in my case), not "I replaced it at X miles because
> I was nervous it wouldn't last any longer".  Is periodic monitoring of the
> pump shaft for leakage and play adequate for predicting near failure? Or
> have owners experienced catastrophic failure when things appeared OK just
> recently?
> 
> 
> Paul Bowman
> '88 Milano Verde
> '86 Spider
> 
> 
> 

================================================================================
Regards,
Alan G. Lambert___________________________________<gerard@domain.elided>
           *******Los Altos, California (office)*******

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