what are the symptoms of a bad water pump? is it the kind of thing that could be bad or weak and you may not even know it? or is it something that would prevent your car from running or something?

 

leaking, overheating, etc

 

If your water pump fails, coolant will not be circulated (or pumped) through the cooling system. Coolant would heat up rapidly and regardless of the thermostat opening, the coolant would not flow through the radiator to be cooled. You would overheat rather quickly and cause serious if not permanent damage.

If the inner seal on the pump is going bad, you will get leakage of coolant from the weep hole of the pump. The inner seal is used as a fail safe for diagnosing failure. Of course, leakage is never good, but this kind of leak is not critical to change THAT DAY. You can drive with the inner seal failing (depending on the speed of the leak). However, if you let it leak too long and the outer seal fails, you will get coolant into the timing chain case as well as coolant mixing with engine oil. This is very bad as coolant contamination can ruin your engine with too much exposure. In belt systems, you would be required to replace the timing belt if this happened. Since ours is a chain, you would likely just have to change your oil a few times.

Nevertheless, a failing pump is an absolute disaster waiting to happen. A failed seal is a 4-8 hour job (depending on the mechanic) that I recommend attempting yourself if you are mechanically inclined and very patient.

 

thank for all your help.