113 votes
Pierburg water pumps are known to be good for about 60-80k, which is the usual time they fail (they either leak or the electronics inside fail).
I'd recommend looking at an upgraded Pierburg water pump. None of the plastic bits & will save you from replacing it again in a few years.
However the pierburg shouldn't crack as it's all aluminum. That doesn't mean it'll last any longer. My original one (n54) failed at about 60k. Replaced with factory. Then replaced that one with pierburg as I was doing oil pan gasket and figured might as well since I'm in there at about 90k. The pierburg one failed at 10k miles (electronics jammed up somehow…I’m guessing some sort of freak surge or something as it’s a pretty simple design). Anyway replaced that with pierburg again and going strong albeit it’s only been 30k miles on the new one.
Have installed many pierburg Full alum cast pumps as well with good results. The Pierburgs are made in china FYI
New parts should be in tomorrow (Pierburg pump). I'll update again after everything is back in! As a small detail, I noticed a brown seal-looking thing stuck in the impeller of the water pump (Continental, BMW logo. Probably factory) I am thinking the pump internally failed while spinning, and the internals took the hit and self-destructed. Hence the total BSD failure code. Just a guess though.
I picked the pierburg for all aluminum casing and impeller. They were both about the same price last time I needed to get one. Note that the pierburg failed at not even 10k miles. I replaced with another pierburg chalking it up to bad luck. The only advantage I can think of with the pierburg is the fact that you can torque down the hoses that use clamps and not have to worry about cracking the housing. But in reality doubtful that is a risk. Also it won’t be in service long enough to get brittle enough to matter.
I went from that just up to the Pierburg ones and it was a night and day difference.
have a pierburg water pump, it’s holding up pretty well.
I too chose pierburg from fcp. Questionable weather it\u2019s any better than oem. I appreciated the all aluminum housing of the pierburg as it provides one less failure point which is the possibility of the plastic cracking due to an over torqued hose clamp.
The Pierburg pump is an all aluminum upgrade. I put one in a couple months ago. It works great, less prone to leaking and I have only ever read/heard good things about it. It is even a few dollars cheaper than the OE VDO pump.
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