Hi,

I have a 2003 carrera 2 with 106,000 miles on it. My water pump is starting to go bad and is leaking a little bit. There is noise coming from the bearing and so I have decided to change the water pump. I saw the online DIY and it doesn't look too difficult.

I was going to buy the URO pump from rock auto its only about 60 dollars.

I was going to drain the coolant at the block and replace it with pentofrost SF diluted 50/50 with distilled water. I wasn't sure how much to buy it comes in 1.5 liter containers.

Does this sound ok? any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

Do NOT buy a cheap water pump! And don't drive your car until you have replaced it with an OEM pump (like Pierburg) with plastic fins. Get an OEM metal gasket too and don't use any sealant. While you're at it replace the thermostat with a low temp unit. Change your serpentine belt too.

A bad water pump in these cars can grenade the engine. Seriously.

I think I used a gallon of Porsche antifreeze but I bought two. It's good to have extra on hand in case you need to top it off. You can lose some during the burping process.


This is a good video but ignore the part where he applies sealant. He's not using the OEM metal gasket.

 

My recommendation is to use Porsche anti-freeze. It is water pump seal/bearing friendly.

I believe you will need two gallons of anti-freeze as the cooling system holds around 4 gallons of fluid. Two gallons gives you a 50/50 blend of anti-freeze and water (distilled water) which should have the freezing level down way below what it gets where you are.

Use a real Porsche water pump. The copies based on reports by those who have installed them often report problems.

I'm not a fan of a low temp T-stat. Whenever I've had to replace a water pump and I always have the T-stat replaced at the same time I've gone with a Porsche T-stat. The Boxster engine has over 313K miles on it and the Turbo engine has over 156K miles on it and all with the factory T-stat.

Ideally the cooling system wants to be refilled with a vacuum lift system. The Porsche techs use this and this vacuum lift system refills a partially or fully empty Porsche coolant system with quickly and with no air pockets. That technique of filling the system as best one can, then running the engine then topping up the level and repeating this scares me. It exposes the heads to air pockets and localized overheating which could cause a head to crack.

 

Thanks for the advice, I ordered the pierberg pump and the regular thermostat.

 

Planning to do this over the weekend. Parts are on the way. One thing I noticed is that my 7 water pump bolts are not the 10mm hex type as mentioned in all the DIY articles, they are T30 type, same with the 4 thermostat bolts. Looking at all the other pics on net and you tube not sure why mine are different

Only thing is my engine was replaced at 49,000 miles in 2008 (now has 106,000 miles) due to IMS bearing failure. Looking at the old bill most of the old engine components were transferred over except for a new coolant reservoir. Not sure why the bolts aren't the same though unless for some reason new bolts were used and they decided to use the t30. Hopefully this won't cause me any problems.

 

I was able to do this over the weekend. Took a bit longer than others though mainly because of seized bolts on the engine mount bracket. Very hard to get them off. The old coolant looked orangeish in color but no evidence of oil. I think it was never changed. Thankfully the old impeller was intact but the bearings were worn.

The Uview 550000 made putting in new coolant very easy, would definitely recommend it.

Thank you for all the advice and help.

 

Glad to hear you got it done. I know it took me a few trips to the store to get the proper combinations of sockets and extensions.