Metal impeller model is available but can be hard to find (Hepu brand). Recommended interval for changing is 80-100K depending on who you talk to. But many fail earlier and may fail as early as 20k. Change as preventive maintenance.
Owner reviews for water pump
The waterpump in my kit from germanautoparts.com was made by Hepu.
I have the Hepu unit in my car. It's been going great for the past 45k miles. Both are good options. I would go with what is cheapest.
I went with the Graf in my 95 passat glx. The graf has a cast iron impeller wheel. The stock one that was in there was plastic and some fins broke off when the pump failed
The water pump I bought from ecstuning, http://www.ecstuning.com/stage...6+12v It is BERU.
from 88k to 150k miles, I put in a new water pump ($27). otherwise very reliable and easy to find parts as there are tons of them in the junkyards.
i bought the dieselgeek timing belt kit which includes the Behr german Thermostat and Hepu water pump. he says that the stock OE style thermostat is better and the reman OE pump (which now uses metal impellors) is better than the hepu.
I had a problem with a metal impeller water pump: I did a tbelt change about 10K miles ago. Used a GRAF water pump with a metal impeller(I think it is most common with the aftermarket tbelt kits). The bearing seal started leaking coolant 8k miles later.
My local aftermarket dealer stopped selling Graf water pumps after two bearing failures in the last month (one failure destroyed the camshaft timing belt).
My OEM plastic one broke and so did the metal-impeller Graf I replaced it with. They Graf seized up and leaked whereas the OEM plastic one just leaked.
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