Water pump Gates or AISIN

You can save yourself some time and money by buying the Aisin water pump / timing belt kit on RockAuto. Don’t mess around with other ones. The parts are all the same OEM you’d get from Subaru at a fraction of the cost, except for the pump itself — but that’s a good thing because while Aisin didn’t make the pump for these, they were an OE pump maker for Subaru and the company that made the OE one for that generation (Gates) has apparently started producing crap. I don’t think Subaru even uses them anymore for their OEM pump.

You should use Aisin or OEM water pumps.

When I do side jobs I use an aisin branded water pump and timing belt tensioner. The aisin kit is top notch.

The inverter water pump is a fairly common failure on the second gen Prius. The pump runs anytime the car is on, and it just wears out.

Just buy the wole WP+ housing as an assembly. Who cares if it's OEM. I install Gates WP/Timing belt kits on many other cars and they are excellent. Better than OEM.

Gates is the brand everyone get and refers to for the water pump. Good quality and cheap enough. If you can't get gates. There are two main impeller designs. Cast and sheet metal tabs. Supposedly the cast impeller design performs better. So if you're ordering from a generic parts store, make sure it's the cast impeller design (but the sheet metal design works just fine).

Mine broke in less than 500 miles and their replacement broke too (which I paid for till I returned them the faulty one back) in less than 500 miles on an Audi A1. Now they have my money for 2 water pumps and I paid for labour costs of replacing twice, and waiting for a refund decision for more than a month. AVOID!!!

Don’t use a Gates kit or if you do purchase the Gates kit without the water pump and get a different brand water pump. Gates water pumps have an enormously high failure rate in the last several years and it sucks to have to do the job twice.

Water pump failed on the gates timing belt kit and engine shredded only 16000 miles on it

Gates water pump failure