Water pump Saleri or Pierburg

My car had a Pierburg on it for over 100k miles and 12 years. It still worked great before I replaced it out of caution.

Saleri is what I put in. No issues about a year in.

I went with the all metal Pierberg pump for my E90, with an N54. The problem with the plastic is that it gets brittle due to thermo cycling, and that is s problem for all of the plastic parts in these engines (valve cover, radiator, expansion tank etc etc). I probably only have 10-15k km on this one so far, but no problems to report and some very long driving days.

I got a saleri installation was very easy and it spun nice.

The all metal pierburg water pumps last longer than the plastic ones.

I'd recommend looking at an upgraded Pierburg water pump. None of the plastic bits & will save you from replacing it again in a few years.

Pierburg water pumps are known to be good for about 60-80k, which is the usual time they fail (they either leak or the electronics inside fail).

However the pierburg shouldn't crack as it's all aluminum. That doesn't mean it'll last any longer. My original one (n54) failed at about 60k. Replaced with factory. Then replaced that one with pierburg as I was doing oil pan gasket and figured might as well since I'm in there at about 90k. The pierburg one failed at 10k miles (electronics jammed up somehow…I’m guessing some sort of freak surge or something as it’s a pretty simple design). Anyway replaced that with pierburg again and going strong albeit it’s only been 30k miles on the new one.

I find it weird that the water pump went bad since i changed it about a year ago with a Pierburg water pump. Next morning my car started overheating. Tried bleeding the system and the pump wouldn’t engage.

I would get a vdo/continental water pump. I’ve bought the all aluminum water pump from pierburg and it died in about 800 miles.