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Am I wrong for replacing a water pump instead of just the gasket?
Last week my 2012 Civic started leaking coolant bad, turns out the water pump bearing was shot and the gasket was cooked too... I swapped the whole pump for $120 but some guys say I should have just done the gasket for $8. Did I waste money or is it always smarter to do the whole job while you're in there?
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simonmoore16d ago
You're not wrong for swapping the whole pump, but I gotta ask - did you actually see any cracks in the impeller or just the bearing failure? Because that's the real tell here. If the bearing was already shot, that pump was on borrowed time anyway, and the gasket was just a symptom of the bigger problem. I've seen guys slap a gasket on a wobbly pump and end up back in the same spot three months later, but I've also seen pumps that looked fine except for a dried out seal. What made you pull the trigger on the whole pump instead of just the gasket? Was it the play in the shaft or just the leak itself?
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