Sherms

I've got a 2002 A4 with 65,000 miles. The car overheated on the highway and had to be towed to the dealership. The culprit? A failed waterpump where the PLASTIC impeller was just spinning on the shaft. The dealer tells me that this is a common problem and that I was lucky just to pay $1400 to have this fixed. Apparently, sometimes when this fails, the impeller seizes up completely and locks up the timing belt....you know the rest of the story, catastrophic engine damage.

By the way, the water pump bearing was fine. Also, aftermarket water pumps use a METAL impeller, not a plastic one, so this tells me that Audi has a design problem here.

So, I'd like to hear from anyone else that has experienced this same problem. If we get enough complaints here, maybe we can force them to do something. Thanks....

rovision

That's why some people here like to do a "Timing Belt" replacement around this mileage. TB is normally rated up to 105k miles, but the WP and sometime a tensioner gives way before that. You were really lucky if it's only the WP!
CAL? Unlikely, few people experience this, mostly because they take preventing measures as said above.

PracTTical

over in the TT arena, most change timing belts (and water pumps) before 60k because of this problem. Alot of us dont put much mileage on our cars (mine's an 01 with 55k) so the weather wears down the plastic bits, seizes the timing belts and boom looks like we need some serious engine work done. It's not an isolated issue with a4's but with all audis. Mother's allroad has a plastic water pump as well, i believe. What audi needs to do is change the timing belt interval to 60k instead of 100k...

Tgr_Clw

Should've stfa'ed first. You're 5K late for a t-belt/water pump job.

Bronze

You aren't the first to fail, but it's far from a common problem, in my opinion.

AudiSport4000

I have no idea why Audi went away from the metal impellers

dagmz6s

Not really 'late' but within the new recommended time frame

dagmz6s

That is, if you can get it to an indy for less then the difference.

Tgr_Clw

Conveniently most t-belt failures occur after the factory warranty.

MikekiM@PureMS

While it's still a plastic impeller, it's a much much more durable reinforced plastic.
Old impellers had a pn stamped on them of 06A121021A
New impellers have a pn stamped of 045121021A. (No relation to the actual water pump pn).