Water pump Gates or OEM Volkswagen

It was the water pump

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).

You'll need to keep an eye on the coolant bottle level, the water pump has been known to leak and need replacement.

I went with Gates. My oem pump on my Mazda CX9 failed at 90k.... The bearing failed and the amount of bearing material in the housing was crazy.

My water pump broke the first time 23k miles ago. Another one just went out on me. I’m 1 month past the 8 years and only at 72k miles.

I used a Gates kit for the timing belt change and the cheap Chinese water pump water seal failed in 2 years.

I recently installed a Gates timing belt kit with pulleys and water pump in my 2001 Forester. Unfortunately, the water pump where it mates to the engine was not machined completely flat and had a very small leak. I ended up having my mechanic remove it and put a stock Subaru one in while he was working on my clutch.

Gates pump on my Chevy 5.3 lasted a year and half. That's bullshit.

Installed a Gates water pump on a Toyota Rav4 with a V6. Needed it now and couldn't wait for an OEM or Aisin one from Rockauto. I should have waited because this pump didn't last two months before pissing coolant.