T5 Water Pump in R5 5cyl.TDI (discussion thread)

[Cousin]

You guys are starting to worry me now
225,000 ks on the original water pump



M

[MultiplexMan]

@bluefin321 - Is this with a Kolbenschmidt water pump? If so, where are you getting it done? It beats my best quote to date.

[bluefin321]

Multi, you have a PM

[T5 Double off road]

Its a track record V W should NOT have, mine went at 55,000k - on very close investigation I found on my 05 yr has a banjo take-off drain from the eng-block, the hollow bolt only had 2 holes to feed into the banjo & it only had approx 1/16" hole feeding into the tiny rubber pipe which was pinched lower down between the lower edge of eng-block & rear wheel drive box, This done in Factory - a total design stuff-up! All sorted by fitting 3x larger drain with NO banjo just an stainless-steel 1/2" elbow with hose-tail as used for water pipes.

[jfoldbar]

You guys are starting to worry me now
225,000 ks on the original water pump



M

if youve got 220k and not changed the pump then i wouldnt worry, there are some who have done 500k without a pump change. your lucky you have a good one.

[Transporter]

Its a track record V W should NOT have, mine went at 55,000k - on very close investigation I found on my 05 yr has a banjo take-off drain from the eng-block, the hollow bolt only had 2 holes to feed into the banjo & it only had approx 1/16" hole feeding into the tiny rubber pipe which was pinched lower down between the lower edge of eng-block & rear wheel drive box, This done in Factory - a total design stuff-up! All sorted by fitting 3x larger drain with NO banjo just an stainless-steel 1/2" elbow with hose-tail as used for water pipes.

It's probably worthwhile mod, since it would be handy to know when the coolant starts passing the seal and the w/pump bearing is still good.

I'd like to just add (for some other readers) that the blocked hose does nothing in preventing the water pump failure other than you would be able to see the coolant drips on the ground when the hose is positioned properly; not when it goes in the tray under the engine (that is also padded and absorbs the fluids).

Checking the coolant level when the engine is cold is the best prevention and once the level goes down, start investigating. In my T5 level dropped a bit a fair while before the coolant started to disappear; now I know that it was the time to replace the w/pump.

[jfoldbar]

In my T5 level dropped a bit a fair while before the coolant started to disappear; now I know that it was the time to replace the w/pump.

i dunno about others, but this statement sounds contradicting to me. how can level drop before coolant disappears. level dropping IS coolant disappearing.

in my own case, i always check fluids daily and i was suddenly putting 20 liters of water in a day. there was no "warning" if thats what your getting at.

[Transporter]

i dunno about others, but this statement sounds contradicting to me. how can level drop before coolant disappears. level dropping IS coolant disappearing.

in my own case, i always check fluids daily and i was suddenly putting 20 liters of water in a day. there was no "warning" if thats what your getting at.

By a bit, I mean 5mm bellow Max. level in the coolant expansion bottle (nothing to worry about, not a big loss after 4-5 years) then few months later another minor 5mm top up to max level. But the following day the coolant was well below Min level. The 1.5L top up disappeared within 10km of driving driving.

I thought that MOST people would get what I meant.

[parafanaylya]

244 000km since Sep 2006 and pump still going. Can't say the same for exhaust manifold.


4S TT

[Transporter]

You are certainly the one of the lucky ones.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

[vanjun]

Sorry to drag up an old thread but I'm sure this is still a current issue.
I have recently bought a 2004 T5 Transporter 2.5 TDI 128kw and noticed it blowing some white smoke on takeoff. I went searching through these forums and found this one which seems appropriate as the van is using water. Happy days for me, wish I had of known about this problem before but that is what you get when you buy from an auction house.
Now it has been mentioned several times in this thread that an electrical waterpump would be a better replacement. Has anybody done this? Do you need to do something with the old waterpump or can you just disconnect the hoses and reroute through the electric pump? Looking for options at the moment.

Thanks
Paul

[Transporter]

No hoses are attached to the water pump. You would have to make a suitable plug to replace the w/pump body in the engine block and then fit el. w/pump.

how is the fuel economy? The white smoke could also indicate the incomplete combustion, leaking injector, disrupted injector spray pattern, and many other things like worn out engine. How many km on the odometer?

[vanjun]

Thanks Transporter.

The engine has done 170k km. So far I have done just under 700km and acording to fuel gauge used 3/4 tank. There is a kind of wine noise that is very soft coming from the front of the van everytime I accelerate which I assume is the fuel pump. There doesn't seem to be any smoke when I start off from cold but after driving then stopping for a little while when I start off again it blows white smoke. Not heaps but noticeable enough in rear vision mirror. I don't think it's head gasket as it's got heaps of power. I've got it booked into a mechanic (Penfolds in Newcastle) but that's not for 2 more weeks.

[Sunny43.5]

This is not conclusive as I got the information from a mechanic his possible answer is that the EGR cooler has a leak allowing coolant to enter the intake manifold. Worth a look maybe .

[vanjun]

Thanks for that. I'll get the mechanic to check that.