Water pump Gates or OEM FORD

I love my ‘24 Big Bend. Bought it off the lot with 28 miles and has been my daily driver for 2 years. Racked up 50K miles pretty fast and I get oil changes every 5K. One had one issue and needed my Water Pump replaced after leaking all my coolant and wasn’t getting heat. Was covered under warranty and didn’t have to pay anything.

'22 OBX has treated me well enough aside from the recalls and water pump. A beast in my rural Canadian snow, and feel like a tank on the road.

Fortunately the factory Ford pumps aren't terribly expensive. M-8501-M50A is the Ford racing part number, includes: pump, pulley, bolts.

I am budgeting in a water pump job too.

I had a 2017 GT… here are common issues that I also ended up having:

Water pump went out at 60k

AC started to struggle, especially on hot days, around 70k miles

During COVID, that water pump was on backorder from Ford so I used one from Gates. I guess Gates had a bad batch and 2 of their's failed in the span of less than a year.

The only one to really avoid out of the 5 choices on Rockauto is the Gates, because of the cheap stamped impeller. Personally, I would not go with an aluminum pump body in this application, but that's just my opinion after working on vehicles for a living for 45+ years.

I used a Gates pump the first time and it leaked. I uninstalled it, cleaned everything up, regreased all the seals, and reinstalled it it... still leaked. Turns out the Gates water pumps for the ecodiesel are just garbage.

I have Gates start leaking within 10k of installation.

I also had the Gates pump leak within 6 months. The input shaft seal was leaking. Gates used to be a great brand but these pumps are garbage.