I don’t want to replace my water pump unless I have to. It’s not leaking or anything, and the engine seems to run nice and cool (recently had to replace otterstat though). So why the new thread?

Have you every heard a water pump? If it’s working correctly, probably not, as you only hear the engine running. But over time my engine has slowly began to sound like it’s running down in a hole (actually, it’s hard to describe the sound, it just doesn’t sound “right”). No visible signs of any problem, and again, seems to be cooling just fine. But lately with the odd sound, I suspect the water pump will eventually fail. I’ve been only taking the car out for short, local drives, no parades or distant street meets.

So the new thread is to ask for opinions. Should I be proactive and replace the water pump just on my hunch? Or should I wait for it to fail? I’ve had water pumps fail before in other cars but NOT overheat the engine and not actually leak coolant until the engine is shut down once home. I’m not saying that is guaranteed, but it could mean I don’t get stranded somewhere. And considering the size of the job of replacing the pump (based on what I’ve read), I’m not sure I want to take on the task unless the consensus here is I am definitely looking at a failure in the near future.

What do you think?

Thomas