Generally when a leaking water pump is recommended to a customer there is a lot of hesitation. Most of this hesitation is just due to the lack of knowledge and even the way that the potential repair is presented. Just because there is a leaking water pump dose not necessarily mean you will see a puddle in your driveway. In most cases you wont even know its leaking unless a repair shop spots it or it gets to the point of engine overheating.

The way coolant is manufactured these days is a mixture of Glycol, Water, and other chemicals. In most instances when a water pump is leaking the coolant flows out of the pre-designed “weep hole” (we will touch on this in a bit), and starts to whip around all the pulleys splashing around in the engine bay. By the time the coolant reaches its destination the water in the coolant mixture has evaporated and thus will build up a residue to anything it touches.

In the two pictures you can see (circled in red) a build up of residue coming out of the water pump and in the other picture you can even see a large pinkish streak, This is from all the spinning pulleys splashing it up. On most water pumps the weep hole starts to leak, this is designed to tell you the bearings of the pump are bad and it is time to replace. Eventually the bearings will come apart or all the coolant will be lost.

Just something we recommend to keep an eye on if it is recommended to you. Again, it is not necessarily visible to the naked eye but can cause damage that will need more work in the future it is not fixed correctly.