Just had the water pump, et al, changed out on my 98.5 A4Q 2.8 for the second time. The factory stuff I changed at 63k out of caution, this stuff was just replaced because the water pump was beginning to fail after only 47k miles. What would cause this to happen? I'm just happy my mechanic caught it after I brought the car in for new tires and asked him to check a hesitation on acceleration that had just started a few days earlier in the week.
An A4 with a 30k miles was towed in today with a broken timing belt and damaged valves. Anything can happen at any time.
Water pumps are a weak spot on some Audi engines. Mine went at about
30K! M
Incredible. What's interesting about this situation for me was that the second thermostat (the one that was changed out for the factory one and just replaced this time along with the failing water pump) never consistently registered a rock solid noon hashmark reading. It would wander one or two hashmarks high over the course of driving, and that always made me nervous. I wonder if that was a harbinger, but this went on for years. I'll be curious as to whether this new (third) thermostat is more consistent.
Get your temp sender checked as there may be nothing wrong with the 'stat. Some VAG temp senders are notorious for failing which can lead to the symptoms you describe.
Usually the monkey lad has overtightened the cam belt.
That makes perfect sense; the water pump bearings were starting to go, and it was making noise, which is how the mechanics detected it. These mechanics are not the ones who installed the failed water pump, and I'm confident they've installed the new one and associated tensioner pulleys and timing belt correctly. Car still drives great; I'm happy to have it back.
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