ICE Water Pump Failure - Photos

Hi All,

I bought my 2008 JDM Prius a couple of weeks ago, at 84,500km. After a week, it started losing engine coolant. (Great start! Hope it's not a sign of things to come...) Fortunately, covered by a 3 month Dealer Warranty - hopefully. Yet to make the claim.

Anyway, went to the local Toyota Dealer to get some of the proper Toyota SSL (Super Long Life) Coolant to top it up. Got chatting with the Service Agent about Prius Service and what HSD Adjustments are possible (not many) and showed him my symptoms.

He told me my symptoms are "the classic water pump failure" symptoms, so thought I'd grab some photos so everyone can see what to look for.

Below, the water pump, located front RHS of the engine (left side when looking into engine bay). Note the irregularly spaced pink lines running radially across the edge of the pump drive pulley. You'll see I've rubbed some of them off in line with the centre of the pump shaft. These lines are created by the leaking coolant, as it trickles out of the pump seal onto the pulley face, from where it is thrown outwards by centrifugal force, running over the edge of the pulley, drying out on its way. The residue is the coolant additives that give it the pink colour.



The second photo shows the same residue on the back of the pulley face - that's normally pretty hard to see - though the camera flash picked it up so thought I'd post it just for the record.


You can also see that the pink residue is right across the inside of the pulley ring.

Obviously, Toyota have reduced the quality of their water pumps to save costs and make more money. The old 1988 Corolla we had went for 200,000km before it needed a water pump. Technological advances must mean they could now make them last even longer. I guess we just have to get used to this... Fingers crossed nothing else on my new toy is going to die for a long while.

 

Hey guys,

Have a couple of great photos but having problems posting them. There are links showing in the post, but they don't work. And, while creating the original thread, couldn't continue editing after uploading the photos. Using Google Chrome - is that the problem? How to fix?

Okay, seem to have fixed it. Will try now to delete the dead links.

 

More...

Just went out for an 80km drive to get the mail and warm / stir up my Transaxle fluid before taking a sample for analysis. My ATF doesn't look that bad. It's still red with a grey tinge. Too dark to see through the sample bottle, but a paper blot test shows almost no metal / contaminant deposits. I wonder if it's been changed already. Will get it analysed anyway. But that's just by the by.

The point is, my coolant pump has stopped leaking again, which is nice - for now anyway. I wonder if this is typical?

BTW, I've been finding that finding stuff in the forum is very difficult. The Search Engine doesn't seem to work very well. Haven't figured that out yet, but after my posts about the fuel tank bladder, it's clear that there's a lot of really great stuff already here. It's just that finding it is (becoming?) very difficult due to the sheer volume of posts and duplicated keywords everywhere. I'm guessing there's already a lot of water pump stuff here too, but didn't really find it yet. Is there any way the 'good oil' can be given a higher priority in Searches? Or, could we create a set of Index pages with links to the best stuff?

To that end, a few relevant keywords for this post:

Coolant pump, water pump, engine coolant pump, cooling water pump, belt driven pump, internal combustion engine coolant, pump failure, pump seal, pump leaking, water leak, coolant leak.

 

Hi Patrick,

Great advice about checking the radiator directly, thanks. A point that many people probably do not realise.

Don't know why they make the overflow tank return like that; it's lousy, cheap, unreliable design, made worse by the possibility that the outer seal on the radiator pressure cap doesn't hold (gets damaged, perishes etc). When that happens, even though the rest of your cooling system is perfectly good (no leaky coolant pump seal), as the coolant cools down, all that gets drawn back into the radiator is air.

So, the level in the header tank will never change, and if that's all one checks, one won't realise that the radiator coolant level is getting lower and lower. It's almost as if it's deliberate bad design to fool people into cooking their engines...

Years ago I found a much better overflow tank (made of copper!), which I installed in my Ford S/Wagon conversion. It was English made, out of an old Austin or Morris, and it had the pressure cap base built in to it. The original radiator cap gets replaced with a flat blanking cap, and the pressure cap moves to the header tank.

That way, all that was needed to check that the radiator level was good was to loosen the pressure cap on the header tank and squeeze the top coolant hose a few times. In fact, due to the air in the header tank, that wasn't even necessary. Just a quick couple of squeezes and a careful listen was all that was needed. If there's air in the radiator, it will bubble out into the header tank, and you'll hear the sound of air and water moving in the overflow pipe, alerting you to a problem. Otherwise, the hose only compresses slowly as the uncompressible coolant flows to the tank, and there's almost no sound.

Such a pity I sold that tank along with the car...

I didn't notice much residue on the AC compressor but I'll have another look. I've only lost about 400ml of coolant so far, and maybe it's only very slow when it leaks, so may not have got that far. As you can see in the pics, there are specks of it all over the place.


CLUBGUY:
Sure will! Since it's started leaking, it's obviously on the brink...

Thanks to both of you.

 

Hey Patrick,

That copper coolant pressure tank design has been on my mind ever since I posted about it. Now I understand why it is no longer used - because it's basically a flawed concept. The air inside the tank, being compressible, will allow a certain amount of water to escape from the engine and cower in the overflow tank, right when it's most needed in the engine - just as the engine temperature gets to 100C / 212F. This would allow localised boiling inside the engine, and pretty much defeats the whole purpose of a pressurised cooling system - to raise the boiling point - before boiling occurs. Sure, it will eventually pressurise, but not before some coolant has migrated out of the engine, effectively leaving "a gap" (i.e. reduced cooling system pressure) in which boiling - the worst thing that can happen - can occur, at a much lower temperature.

Thought you might be interested to add this to the automotive encyclopedia you apparently keep inside your head, if you didn't know it already.

Just as well I never ran that engine over 95C...

 

Hi there tanglefoot,

Thanks for all the good info and reassurance. I'd really quite like to do the job myself, but as it's (hopefully) covered by the warranty, I'll probably have to let the dealer arrange it. Lest I void my warranty in case anything else happens - though I don't think it will.

 

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for your comments & suggestions.

I'll make sure to get the old pump when it's replaced, and post photos.

Regarding coolant residue on the air cond compressor, I can now confirm that when I posted the photos, there was none showing. However, it showed up there, and a bit on the inside of the hood lining, yesterday. I remember looking at the compressor previously and not being able to decide if there was any there or not. Now that there is, it's plain to see. At the moment, it seems like the pump has a little leak every other day.

Of course I can't say whether the coolant pump was leaking before I bought the car as the dealer would probably have washed it off, but, given that he's selling all his cars with warranties, I doubt that he would let it go out knowing it was leaking. So my belief is that it's only just started, especially given that the leak rate is quite low so far. But I think it's time to get it fixed, before anything bad happens.

It's a pity that there is no way of reading the engine temperature - even when the ICE IS running - or, is there? Does anyone know if there are any hidden codes or combinations that activate a Diagnostic Screen or similar, on the MFD?

I guess the ScanGauge 2 gives ICE Coolant Temp? Is the SG2 the best monitoring device, or are there others I should consider? Does the SG2 provide individual HV Battery Blade readings (or bladepairs?)?

 

Hi Patrick,

Many thanks for your very helpful answers.

Yep, booked in for 8am tomorrow at local Toyota Dealer. Earliest they could do. Will post photos of pump when done.

Found a couple of threads, thanks. The hidden buttons one looked the most interesting, but I guess you forgot I have a JDM model. Unfortunately, my ability to read Japanese is zero, but is there a member who can help out? Some photos to follow, with luck.

Many thanks! Will look into that anyway.

So, I followed the Hidden Buttons Diagnostic Menu instructions as best I could, and will start a new thread on that.

BTW, I keep getting "Security error ... " messages from the Forum site. Any pointers on what's up there?

 

Hi again Patrick,

Many thanks - superlative advice! Have one ordered and on its way now.

Cheers!
Al

 

Hi jadziasman,

Awesome tip! Many thanks. Have several spare Android phones, so halfway there already!

Can you go OBD-II to the USB port on the phone, or does it have to go Wi-Fi? If it's going to be a fixture (as I suspect it might), I'd rather use cable...

Cheers,
Al

 

Huh? Duplicate post... Deleted.

 

Oh, cool! Did you draw the short straw and get a lemon? Reading here, they are not all bad, but it sounds like a few fell into the lemon basket but made it out the factory door anyway.

Is there anything in common among the bad ones? Or is it really just the environment combined with the operator that conspire to kill a few of these technological marvels?

I shall just have to wait and see how my one goes. Destiny has already whispered in my ear, for whatever reason. One way or the other, I'm sure it's going to be an interesting ride. My life is like that... But I'm sure that no matter which way it goes, I'll reap lots of incredible value out of the Prius experience.

I already know that certain parts are somewhat fragile, but I can't tell how long I've wanted a car that can do regen braking and has ultra-efficient fuel combustion. One that is highly computer-controlled, with an offset crank, (modified) Atkinson-cycle engine, a 20kW Servo Motor (and a second, smaller one) that run off a 200+V battery in the back - with the IC engine either Running or completely Stopped, and that makes those immensely complex transitions as smoothly as a riding over a small bump in the road, AND that implements an epicyclic, full eCVT... well...

It's as much as I've ever dreamed for - out of such a primitive, dead-end machine as a fossil fuel powered, rubber tyred, laquer coated, steel bodied transportation contrivance as the "modern" automobile - that is.

But to think that I can go down the road and buy all that for the same price as many ordinary old, full-time ICE-powered cars, and I don't have to try and make it myself - well, it almost blows my mind. So, whatever your experience, I look forward to mine.

No worthwhile progress is made without some kind of struggle.

 

Done today.

Happy to oblige. But PC isn't... Having errors trying to upload... Nope, still no go. Will try again tomorrow.

Note that Patrick's thread, linked above, includes photos of other models of Prius ICE Coolant Pumps. I think my one makes a 3rd?