Water pumps, timing belts and vital fluid services

How to Properly Care for and Service the Vital Fluids in Your Vehicle.

In this episode of Auto Care Corner, John and Rich discuss not only why and when you should service your vehicles vital fluids but also by what methods. They also discuss water pumps and timing belts and why it is mission critical to service these 2 items together on certain vehicles.

John also explains why it is so important to have a competent shop with experienced master technicians using the proper equipment to properly flush out your vital fluids. Very important that the flushing equipment is non invasive meaning it uses the vehicles pumps to exchange the fluid. Much like a blood transfusion uses the body’s heart (pump) to pump out old blood and intake the new blood, a coolant, transmission or power steering fluid exchange machine uses the vehicles pumps to pump out the old fluid and intake the new fluid. Done properly, the vehicle never knows that there is a machine attached to it. Always a good idea to run a fluid conditioner (detergent) through the system first as this cleans it out and extends the life of the new fluid as it doesn’t have to deplete it’s own detergents as soon as it is injected into the vehicle.

The water pump is driven off either the engine’s serpentine belt or the engine’s timing belt. When driven off the timing belt it very important to replace the water pump when servicing and replacing the timing belt. Most timing belt replacements are very labor intensive and because they are usually serviced around the 90,000-100,000 mile interval it makes economic sense to replace the water pump because their life expectancy is just about 100,000 miles. If you don’t replace it and it leaks shortly after then the coolant leaks out of the water pump and contaminates your timing belt which will cause it to fail in short order which is exactly what you are trying to prevent in the first place. On most engines, timing belt failure will result in severe engine damage.