how to prevent water pump problems?

[friendly_jacek]

I have 2006 V6 RAV4 and had no problems with water pump yet, but lots of folks had leaky WPs replaced under warranty in v6 rav4 and some more then once.
My warranty expires very soon and I would like to prevent a very expensive repair (engine has to be removed to replace WP).

The coolant is the pink Toyota very long life fluid that in theory should last 100,000 miles or 120 months per the manual.

Would more frequent fluid change (every 30,000-60,000 miles) prolong the WP life? Any additives?

BTW, The WPs fail with leaky seals mostly, some have load bearings too.

 

[Quest]

NA made water pumps supplied to NA built toyotas have a higher failure rate.

My wifey's 04 Camry 2AZFE had it's factory water pump replaced @ 5,8000kms under warranty (as part of the purchasing deal -dealership went through the car once and replaced/service all the leaks and what-not under warranty).

On the other hand: none of the Japanese built Toys or Hondas that I serviced so far had any factory OE water pumps failed until they were serviced as part of the T-belt job.

I suspect that there's fundamental quality differences between those supplied to NA assembly lines vs those that supplied the Japanese assembly lines.

Q.

p.s. there's nothing you can do RE: extend water pump surface life and WP seems to differ from 1 to another mainly on quality and reliability, probably the correlation of quality of constructions and materials used. I know Chinese bearings/water pumps/remain wp are inferior in most ways imaginable and I would stay away whenever possible.

 

[HTSS_TR]

I think that frequent coolant change every 30-40k miles does extend the WP life, my '94 +250k miles LS400 has second WP when it was changed at 120k miles with timing belt. This WP has more than 130k miles and still okay. I changed coolant every 3 years/3x,xxx miles.

 

[skylinegtr]

The engine doesn't need to come out to replace a water pump. All you needa do is remove the passenger side wheel to get to it. Yeah a lot of faulty waterpumps with these toyotas.

 

[The Critic]

Originally Posted By: skylinegtr
The engine doesn't need to come out to replace a water pump. All you needa do is remove the passenger side wheel to get to it. Yeah a lot of faulty waterpumps with these toyotas.

It depends on the model. On some of the 2GR-FE engines the FSM says engine removal is needed.

 

[bigmike]

Engine removal for a water pump?! Goodness.

 

[KrisZ]

And we all know that FSM's way to do something is the only way

If the WP failures are cause by a faulty design, incompatible materials or manufacturing process, there is little that can be done to prevent this failure, just inspect WP on a timely basis and replace the moment you see coolant leaks, that's about all you can do.

 

[friendly_jacek]

Originally Posted By: Quest
NA made water pumps supplied to NA built toyotas have a higher failure rate.


The only problem with that statement is my RAV4 and the ones with failures were made in Japan (MY06-07). Rav4 production in Canada didn't start before Nov. 2008.