Thanks guys to those who replied. We don't yet have enough of a sample size to draw any reliable conclusions, but so far the numbers are below. It would be interesting if we received many more responses and nearly all the failures occurred at 40k miles or below.

-- 5 Water pump failures at the following mileages:
28k, 20k, 40k, 23k, 75k

-- 6 Original pumps were still healthy at the following mileages:
24k, 31k, 38k, 57k, 67k, 80k

-- 2 peanut gallery remarks about topic being beaten to death. I've seen many qualitative posts on water pump failures, but none were particularly quantitative. It'd be interesting to see the data on pump failures.

 

IMHO mileage is important but you have to also consider the age of the water pump, the environment of the car (i.e heat, cold temp, aridity, etc).. as well as how often and how hard u drive.


In other words, there are too many variables to consider... and u cannot come to simple conclusion based on just the mileage.


fwiw
2007 C2S manual: replaced the WP at 60000 miles (8 years old) as a preventative maintenance in Jun 2015

 

Failed at 60,000. Pulley shaft sheared off while driving home from a long road trip. Covered by extended warranty.

 

Mine failed at ~ 40,000 miles when about 8 yrs old. Cracked plastic reservoir case.

 

-09 C4S, failure at 41,000 miles. Replaced under extended warranty. Around $1,300 as i recall it.

 

I'm sure you're right!