COMPLETE WATER PUMP FAILURE - The Unofficial BMW M5 Messageboard (m5board.com)

oto60 · 12th October 2005, 18:40

My beast will be in the shop for over a week. Had a complete water pump failure. Was driving home the other day and noticed the check coolant level indicator come on. Didnt think much of it. Parked the car in the garage and then an hour later went to check on the beast. The garage was full of COOLANT. Freaked out... Had the car towed to the dealer. Thank God for CPO.

Is this a common problem with the E39 M5's???? The car only has 21,000 miles. Any idea? Anything else I should have them look at since the car is already beng taken apart??? Any information would be appreciated. Thanks.

Hobbez · 12th October 2005, 19:41

Had mine go at 56k. Replaced along with radiator. Evidently the pump failing is a semi common thing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by oto60

My beast will be in the shop for over a week. Had a complete water pump failure. Was driving home the other day and noticed the check coolant level indicator come on. Didnt think much of it. Parked the car in the garage and then an hour later went to check on the beast. The garage was full of COOLANT. Freaked out... Had the car towed to the dealer. Thank God for CPO.

Is this a common problem with the E39 M5's???? The car only has 21,000 miles. Any idea? Anything else I should have them look at since the car is already beng taken apart??? Any information would be appreciated. Thanks.

M Macht · 12th October 2005, 19:51

With E39's, I've read that water pump and/or radiator failures are common (around 60-90K miles) and should be prophylactically replaced when that mileage is reached. 21,000 miles seems awfully early for this to occur.

Amjad Ali · 12th October 2005, 20:28

I have been lucky enough to have run bmw's since I was 19, and also have a big brother who is a mechanic.

He always told me the weak point of a BMW engine was the water pump. Anytime i bought a used one he would always change the water pump for me. He always made sure I changed them every 40K miles.

But 21K is way to low.

TCM · 12th October 2005, 21:16

The cooling systems on BMWs are their weak points. Usually not untila round 60k before you need to worry about it though. Not a huge job, and be glad that you got the car home without overheating it.

MariettaM5 · 12th October 2005, 21:26

I changed mine at about 75k miles. It didn't fail completely but had started to leak around the bearing and was getting progressively worse.

verhagke · 12th October 2005, 23:21

most water pumps are designed to leak slowly once the bearings start to fail. This way you will notice an issue (low coolant level, coolant in engine compartment) before it becomes a significant problem.

robluvs2xlr8 · 13th October 2005, 02:49

Water pumps seem like a common things in V8's.

My LS1 V8 camaro had a water pump failure also. at around 44000 miles