DeanClevername

Nope, no sealant was used, the gasket is what was leaking. What you are seeing is dried coolant as a result of the leak (ignore the shop-crud on the impeller etc). It was a very small leak from the top and eventually pooled in the gap at the bottom of the pump as you can see at the top of the pic.

It's possible that it wasn't seated correctly which didn't manifest itself until the last few weeks. However the cooling ability of the pump in traffic seemed slightly diminished as early as last fall, far before any external leak. I think the two problems are unrelated. The pump definitely looked older than it was (actually installed 10/2015), but the car was driven 25k mi in all manner of conditions. Guess it goes to show that impeller lifespan is quite unpredictable.

Chris(MA)

That pump is a mess for a 2year 25k mile unit. I can't see how the wheel blades could be damaged like that without the bearing failing and allowing too much shaft movement and grinding the paddles against the block.

What brand was this pump and how was the bearing?

Either this pump is poor quality or perhaps road salt got into the bearing and caused rapid failure, leading to shaft wobble and impeller damage.

dporto

I hope you find all the pieces of the impeller before you go slapping a new pump on there. If not, you could be in for a much more expensive surprise (cracked head/intermix)... Good Luck

Mike Murphy

Well, he should try to get the pieces out, and most are hopefully caught in the t-stat area, and I would try to back-flush (reverse flow) to get it all out.

But I wouldn't lose sleep over any remaining items that are stuck in there.

DeanClevername

Salty roads are the only conditions this car doesn't see. When salt is down, I metro.

This was a Pierburg pump, I was under the impression they were an oem supplier of these pumps but could be wrong. Bearing was good, smooth and no wobble ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

dporto

The impeller blades clearly made contact with something to break like that (in addition to the broken blade there are several others that are gouged and abraded)... If the bearing is good, how did the blades get broken ? Is there a nut or a bolt floating around in your water pump? Something is out of whack here...

Mike Murphy

Look up "cavitation" and how it can destroy an impeller due to shock waves. Combine that with the knowledge that water pumps on these cars seem to have more common failures due to a poor design or another fault in the system, and I could surmise that no debris is a possible outcome as well.

Chris(MA)

Cavitation wouldn't damage a few impeller blades and leave the others ok, also wouldn't leave scrape marks all over the plastic.

The damage to this 2yr low mileage water pump is very odd.

Mike Murphy

I took a closer look and now see what you mean. Seems like there was a bolt or something that dented one of the blades as well. That's crazy.