Well, my 97 30th has sat parked for almost six years. I started driving it in May. Well I found out that I had a 4 inch crack in my raditor. So I payed $500 to get a new one installed thanks to my dad not asking be before he oked the repair. Thanks dad for the kick in the nuts. Well a few years before I parked it I had the water pump replaced. Could it be bad again because of sitting? The mech that did the raditor said I need a new one. Do you think thats what I definitly need or is there something else I can do. Then can I upgrade the new water pump with a stock raditor? If so got any recs on a new one and how much$$$???? Thanks to anyone with info

 

Did you check the water pump weep hole for signs of leakage? Are you experiencing overheating problems?

 

Yes the mech said that the weep hole is leaking water and said i need a new one.. No the therm kicks in and cools her down but it does get pritty high when im stopped at light. The mech said about 200 to 250 for pump and it would be about a $400 job is that about right?

 

My experience is this. If you're replacing a difficult to replace part or a part in which failure can cause a larger problem, go with a high quality part. I can tell you that when replacing my water pump, I went with an AC Delco unit. Why? Because in the past I have had duralast water pumps that failed out of the box or after just a few months or a year. This was something I did when I was younger. Walk into auto parts store, tell them what I need, they tell me "$40 with lifetime warranty" and I would buy it not really knowing. As I've gotten older, I rarely use cheap parts. Duralast is absolute bottom of the barrel. For this job, you'll need to drain your coolant, and you risk damaging your optispark. Failure while driving will likely damage the optispark. This raises another problem - it is very difficult to find a quality optispark that has the Mitsubishi sensor. This means that if you destroy a well functioning opti, you will have to replace it with a junk unit that will give you issues,and now you're pulling radiator, water pump, damper, etc. to replace it. To me, it isn't worth it. The Delco unit I got ran me like an additional $50, but I'm confident it will last me another 100k or so without failure.

If they'll refund you for the pump instead of a replacement, I would do that and buy a good water pump.

I have had duralast parts brand new out of the box that did not work or were broken. Water pump, starter, ignition switch just to name a few.