Bolt replacement when fitting new water pump?

[Moose850]

Originally Posted by acshortt5

IMO. Bearing in mind it is such an important part, the labour involved to change it is a lot and the fact that you'll probably only change it once, maybe twice, during the cars life (I got 20 years out of the original before it started leaking) I fail to see the point of not getting the volvo kit which comes with pump, gasket and bolts.

It is obviously important to get a good seal so if 1 or more bolts do come loose then it probably won't fail but you may end up with a coolant leak and an expensive exercise to get back in there to fix it.

I totally get the point that you can clean up old bolts and put threadlock on them to reuse (I have done so on other parts) but for this which is so crucial and a pain to get to I don't think it's worth the risk.

FYI the garage that did mine said it took quite a bit of time to remove all of the old gasket so just something to bear in mind when doing the job.

Thanks very much for your post. I have weighed up everything that has been said here and on another post of mine about whether 'to' or 'not to' change the water pump (if it is not leaking) when doing a cam belt change.

I decided yesterday to go for a genuine water pump which comes with gasket and bolts and cost £106 incl. VAT as opposed to non gen which would be around £50. As you said, it is unlikely I will ever have to change it again. My engine/car has done 250,000 miles, I think that works out very reasonable for the price of a pump. I can do the work myself (tomorrow in fact) so I do not have the cost of labour. Fortunately the 850 has some excellent design points and a cambelt change is very simple.