N52 electric Water Pump - Ouch!

Mr Tidy

Mr Tidy

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 North West Surrey
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So a couple of weeks ago about 28 miles into a 33 mile journey my temperature gauge shot up from normal to red light zone in less than a mile.

I didn't fancy stopping on an unlit NSL dual carriageway at 10pm so cranked the heating and fan right up, opened the windows and got home without the needle going off the gauge.

Anyway this morning I collected the fixed car from my regular BM specialist complete with it's new water pump and thermostat.

Wow, they are expensive - £500 for just the pump (with the VAT included) and over £100 for the thermostat! :thumbsdown:

My car has only done 61,700 miles so I am a little disappointed - just curious to learn if this is fairly typical or I was just unlucky.
 
Mine made it to nearly 90k before I started hearing the fan revving up/down from cold start up, it hadn't failed but was on the way out.
I got a genuine pump for £280 (trade price) but I think you can get them on eBay for that or even cheaper, you were extremely lucky not to ruin your engine!
My car is an 06 so I figure if the replacement lasts as long as the original I can't complain.
Regards
 
I had the stat replaced at under 30k on my 2.5si they have an electric element in them which is one reason they are so expensive.
 
The water pumps run about $600 on this side of the pond and seem prone to failure after about 10 years. I know a number of individuals in our local club have smaller bank accounts due to water pump failures.
 
I believe that the usual failure mode is age or duty cycles with the electric pumps. Aside from the odd anomaly like srhutch's 10 years seems to be the going rate mileage independent.

Know how you feel about an unexpected bill but it should be good for another 10 years.
 
Scooba_Steve said:
I believe that the usual failure mode is age or duty cycles with the electric pumps. Aside from the odd anomaly like srhutch's 10 years seems to be the going rate mileage independent.

Know how you feel about an unexpected bill but it should be good for another 10 years.
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Mine was the stat not the pump, but still an anomaly.
 
Any way to test/check either of these, to pre-empt a failure?
Or is it a case of they either work, or they fail, with no warning signs (other than perhaps Smartbear's case of fan revving up/down)?
 
The mapped stats fail open so would not cause an overheat but an overcool. i paid £96 for a genuine BMW one the other day for our X3. The water pump however being electric will cause rapid overheat when failing and it put our car straight into limp mode. I got a Pierburg pump for about £260 off Ebay and then you are into £100 labour.
 
See my thread here:

http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=76980&hilit=pump

Mine went at circa 45k miles so even more unlucky
 
bluestreak56 said:
See my thread here:

http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=76980&hilit=pump

Mine went at circa 45k miles so even more unlucky
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Interesting thread - good to see you got your pump sorted at a reasonable price, and assume no problems since.
 
Oh well, mine had it's 9th birthday last month so it looks like it's death was as others have experienced.

I would have hoped for a longer life on such a critical component, but that's progress no doubt! My M54 engined 325ti is still on it's original mechanical pump at 13 years old (I hope that isn't the kiss of death)! Mind you it had to have the inevitable radiator, expansion tank, temperature sensor, etc. refresh last year, but that only cost about half as much!
 
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