On my friend's 06 Prius that I have been working on, I just this week, noticed a light build up of pink coolant residue on the inside of the ICE water pump pulley. I assumed that this was due to a coolant leak from the weep hole, which points to an impending water pump failure.
Despite not having an appointment, I took the car to my local Toyota dealership this morning. I told the service advisor what the issue was and he had their master technician (27 yrs of experience) look at the car. I was in the service drive at 7:30, the car was in the bay at 8, and the tech had the water pump repair completed at 8:45. I was out of there just after 9am, which was incredible for a Saturday morning. I also spoke to the tech while he was finishing up the job and he showed me an easy way to bleed the cooling system that I was not aware of.
Overall, it was a great repair experience. The dealer took care of the problem promptly and without any hassle. I was pleasantly surprised that the advisor did not give me the runaround, and simply took my word for it. Since this was a previously certified pre-owned car, the extended powertrain warranty picked up the cost except for a $50 deductible. Unfortunately, if it had been a customer pay repair, the cost would have been $520! It is quite disappointing that a new water pump is needed at 85k, but I am glad that I noticed the leak and was able to have it repaired before the warranty expired. If the car had not been under warranty, I would have bought the OE pump for $100 and had done the job myself.
Overall, I was quite impressed with how well the dealer handled this repair since the leak was so minor. I was expecting to have needed to authorize 1 hr of labor as diagnostic since the car was out of factory warranty, but that was not the case. However, I am not happy that Toyota is having so many issues with their engine water pumps on a variety of their models, not just the Prius.
Despite not having an appointment, I took the car to my local Toyota dealership this morning. I told the service advisor what the issue was and he had their master technician (27 yrs of experience) look at the car. I was in the service drive at 7:30, the car was in the bay at 8, and the tech had the water pump repair completed at 8:45. I was out of there just after 9am, which was incredible for a Saturday morning. I also spoke to the tech while he was finishing up the job and he showed me an easy way to bleed the cooling system that I was not aware of.
Overall, it was a great repair experience. The dealer took care of the problem promptly and without any hassle. I was pleasantly surprised that the advisor did not give me the runaround, and simply took my word for it. Since this was a previously certified pre-owned car, the extended powertrain warranty picked up the cost except for a $50 deductible. Unfortunately, if it had been a customer pay repair, the cost would have been $520! It is quite disappointing that a new water pump is needed at 85k, but I am glad that I noticed the leak and was able to have it repaired before the warranty expired. If the car had not been under warranty, I would have bought the OE pump for $100 and had done the job myself.
Overall, I was quite impressed with how well the dealer handled this repair since the leak was so minor. I was expecting to have needed to authorize 1 hr of labor as diagnostic since the car was out of factory warranty, but that was not the case. However, I am not happy that Toyota is having so many issues with their engine water pumps on a variety of their models, not just the Prius.
