My 1998 BMW had a water pump failure on a Saturday evening. I was on the freeway slowed down to merge to another freeway and heard a ting , ting, ting, sound and thought was it my car, or the guy in the next lane over?
Well I soon lost the power in the power steering , so I'm thinking ok, I probably broke a belt. Not the end of the world, it's just going to be a little harder to steer. Then my temperature gauge started climbing, so uh oh, get off the freeway exit" stage right", now. Pulled off on to the city street, and stopped the car. Now the wife is concerned. I open the hood and the serpentine belt is not where it should be and the car is loosing a little coolant. I pulled over soon enough, so no damage to the engine. So I pull the cell phone out and call AAA. Told them I needed to have my car towed, and why. First time I ever had the tow truck show up 5 minutes after I hung up the phone. The car broke down in San Lorenzo, and I had to get it the shop here in Napa. Thank god we had purchased the extended 100 mile tow service from AAA. So the car dropped off to the shop, I get home about midnight. Not how I wanted to spend Saturday night. Monday, I check out the car , and find that the water pump failed; not the belt liked I hoped. So I start ordering the parts. Water pump, upper and lower radiator hoses, serpentine belt, air conditioning belt, belt tensioner assembly for the serpentine belt, tensioner for the A/C belt, and A/C tensioner pulley. Got to working on the car and found that the ting, ting ,ting, I heard was the water pump pulley bouncing off some part of the motor. BMW in their infinite wisdom decided that the pulley should be made out of plastic. So I stop and go order a new pulley. While I have the water pump out; I try to take off the fan clutch. The Fan Clutch is stuck to the water pump, so I go back to order a replacement fan clutch. After getting all the parts, I have them installed and coolant flowing correctly. The car is now in tip top shape! So to the point of this of this story. Cars break down. IT is inconvenient when they do break down. When the technician/shop goes to work on the car there is the possibility for the need of extra parts and or labor to fix the car properly. Breakdowns do happen to mechanics too; even though we do our best to keep the cars maintained so they don't leave us stranded; car parts will unexpectedly fail, and it will leave us stranded on the side of the road. We understand and empathize with you when your car has issues. We try to get your cars up and back running as smoothly and painless as possible. Remember we want you in your car as much as you want to be driving your car down the road. Comments are closed.
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Victor J
ASE Certified Technician, Racer at heart, Automotive Nut in General Archives
February 2019
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