Corsa water pump failure (general rant)

It's cheaper. They save money on four or five bolts, a bit of casting, a cambelt tensioner they don't now need and can use a shorter and cheaper fanbelt.

May only be a couple of quid an engine but when you make millions of them...

Mrcheerful ( snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Or is it just ones that haven't had the coolant and/or belt and tensioners replaced at the _time_ interval, because they're nowhere near the mileage interval...?

Talking to a car trading mate-of-a-mate last night - he deals in 4-5yo stuff, and is getting very pissed off with the fact that everything that's coming up now has umpteen easily-avoidable maintenance-related problems despite being serviced "to the interval"... and all because the intervals are 20k+ to keep the maint cost nice and low for the first owner...

thats all the manufacturers cae about , once its down the chain its not thier problem

I don't really see why dealer maintenance is so expensive when they don't do half of what they're supposed to anyway. Still, it'll come to bite them in the arse when their cars get known for being unreliable heaps of s**te in their dotage...

... and they usually fail out of warranty so you can either scrap the car (selling them a new one), or charge through the nose to repair.

It's called a win-win situation... ;)

D

Not entirely sure why you're upset at getting 2 day's work out of it - unless you sold her the car and have a warranty obligation ;}

agree about the pump, though - a scandal that a 6 year old low mileage engine should be wrecked because of such a trivial item.

No, she is a new customer referred by another garage. It just infuriates me to have to do all that work for something so silly. Yes, I'll get paid for it, but I don't think the customer should have to pay, the manufacturer should, they would soon change their designs then, they might make the engine bays easier to work on too. It was things like this which made me stop working on French cars, I hated giving people enormous bills to keep the horrible things working.

Mrcheerful

I'm bloody glad I got shot of my Corsa. A piece of shit from one end to the other. I'd never go near one again.

Isn't it time cars were looked at the same way under the sale of goods act? If I buy a telly it is reasonable to expect it to last several years, say 7-10 no matter what guarentee/warranty is given. Why should cars be exempt? 7 years is not old for a car these days.

Llareggub ( snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

They are.

How much regular maintenance does your TV require?

I think people should get into the habit of changing the water pump with their cambelts, especially if they are run off the same belt, I paid an extra 30 quid to buy a new water pump when I changed my cambelt (1.8T)

Vauxhall should really inform owners of the possibility the water pump may fail and that the engine is interference so can cause expensive damage.

6 Years seems a long time on a Corsa to not have a belt change, isn't it 4yrs?

[...]

I don't think the OP said it was the first change...

Chris

it all looked original to me, so still on the first belt. but even if it had a belt change, at less than 30k miles it would be unusual to change the pump at such a low mileage 40 k maybe, 80 k definitely.

it is 40k or 4 years change

so at 4 years it would have been sub 20k miles, even the ultra cautious would be unlikely to get either the belt or pump done at such a low mileage.

Mrcheerful

Only up to a point though. I had Vauxhalls for over 10 years in the

80s and 90s. IMO they became so rubbish for reliability that I thought the manufacturer must be taking the complete piss. Water pumps (far too many!), cams (lobes), rust (wheel arches), alternators, brakes, cambelt tensioners, warning lights, radiators, rough engines, stalling engines, baulky low speed driving, embarrassing body control when cornering at speed..the sorry list goes on and on. However they were cheap to run and practical, when the AA weren't towing them.

I moved to Alfa Romeo (it cannot be worse, I thought!) over 6 years ago and I've had a MAF fail (not uncommon to a few car makers) in that time. No list of misery and no AA tows - what a joy! AR are not close to perfection but there is no way I would sell mine to buy a Vauxhall because there is no way I'd have a Vauxhall again..period. If I was given one, it'd be up on eBay before I could say "get that hellish creation of the devil out of my sight". So there!

I'd call it short sighted rather than win-win myself.

Personally I would change pump and belt at the same time, so 2 years ago the belt should have been changed and as the pump is hardly being used they do tend to sieze up, if the car was used daily and driven at least 20-30 miles the chances of the pump siezing are reduced.

Belts do wear hence why they give you 40k miles or 4 years, most decent garages will advise you to change the water pump at the same time as the cam belt, it's a no brainer really unless you drive a non interference engine or like the 16v Corsa the engine is chain driven :)

Remember that water left sitting in the water pump is not good for any car, lower miles means work, higher miles cars genrally last longer as the parts are allways moving.

Try to get the lower milege means better condition car thoughts out of your head, people still would prefer to buy a low miles car which is absurd really, when you consider all the wear on that engine from stop starts especially from cold :)

It's still a shit to the owner but 6 yrs for a water pump isn't bad, I have had 2 water pumps in 5 years in my car all done at cambelt change time.

On Sep 7, 11:41 am, Zathras

I had cavaliers in the 80's and they were fine other than every one snapped a belt at some point and every one needed a water pump at some point. In those days though there was no damage caused by a broken belt so I used to do them myself in about half an hour and 10-15 quid for the belt. Oh hang on, the first one smoked and needed new rings. I currently have a 1990 Carlton and apart from the rust, it's not bad. It too though needed a water pump when I first bought it. ...oh and the camshaft is almost round. hmmm, as was the one on my brother's Nova.

Ok, ok, if you get a good one, they're not bad cars for the money.

On what sort of planet is that "not bad"? People like you who accept constant replacement of parts are the reason the manufacturers get away with it!

I've owned over 50 cars since I passed my test. The only ones I've ever had to replace water pumps on were A-series engines (Marinas in the 70s and Minis).

That includes such stuff as the Toyota Previa that we owned for 5 years and 70k miles, and the LandCruiser that we owned for 4 years and god knows how many miles.

With modern technology a well-designed water pump should not fail inside

100k. Yet they do...

No wonder I don't buy modern cars any more!

What would you rather do, replace a 30 quid part every time you change a cam belt, or just leave it to 100k miles or 10yrs and hope everything is ok?

If you drive sheds like you suggest then throwing a belt and bending some valves is not a problem, but try replacing a 1.8T engine and see what change you get from £5000, now can you see why it pays to change a £30 quid part every 40-60k miles?

What you call a shed and what I call a shed are two different things. My engines have chains - no belt to throw.

I understand what you are saying, but it's still part of a design culture that expects parts to be replaced frequently when they could be designed to last much longer.