Turning an engine 90 degrees for use in a different application usually results in fairly harmless engineering compromises. It’s why Nissan 350Zs starve their front two cylinders of air, and why you can’t simply use a front-wheel-drive LS4 V8 from a Grand Prix GXP in an old Camaro without some modifications, but neither of these quirks are anywhere near catastrophic. However, notice I wrote “usually”? There’s an exception to every rule, and Ford cars and crossovers equipped with 3.5-liter and 3.7-liter V6s are an exception, because they can be mechanically totalled due to simple water pump failure. Here’s how.
On most cars, the water pump is driven by either the serpentine belt or the timing belt/chain, two arrangements that have their own pros and cons and take slightly different approaches to water pump replacement. In the case of the former, losing a serpentine belt means you also lose drive to the water pump. If this happens, you may notice a 12-volt charging system fault light on the dashboard before the car starts to overheat, or notice heavier hydraulic power steering if your vehicle’s so equipped. Another plus besides these pre-overheat warnings is that if a serpentine belt-driven water pump starts to leak, replacement it is generally fairly easy because it’s bolted to the outside of the engine block. For instance, a 2008 Toyota Camry with the 3.5-liter V6 engine uses this arrangement, and even though you need to pull an engine mount to change the water pump, book labor time comes in at a reasonable 4.2 hours.
In the case of a vehicle with a water pump driven by the timing belt, that belt will have a fixed replacement interval and the water pump almost always gets changed with the belt as part of a preventative maintenance regimen. The 2008 Honda Accord V6 uses this arrangement, has a timing belt interval of 100,000 miles, and the whole job requires just four hours of book labor. Not too bad for a timing system-driven pump swap.
Screenshot: YouTube/C.L.S. All-In-OneHowever, then we get to Ford’s transversely mounted 3.5 liter and 3.7-liter Cyclone V6. While timing chains from non-German manufacturers are generally maintenance-free for the life of the vehicle, Ford went with an internal water pump design, i.e. the water pump is driven by the timing system like on the aforementioned Accord (except a chain instead of a belt).
This wouldn’t be a huge problem if water pumps lasted forever, but they don’t. Seals can age out causing leaks, water pump drive bearings can wear out, and plastic vanes on the water pump impeller can break. I’m not going to clown on plastic water pump vanes, as bits of plastic in cooling passageways sound less bad than having bearings in a metal impeller pump go bad, leading to the vanes chewing up their cavity and sending bits of metal everywhere, but I am going to highlight why Ford’s specific design has some serious flaws.
Firstly, access to the pump takes a while if you need to change it, as this extremely helpful DIY video from YouTube channel C.L.S. All-In-One shows. On an all-wheel-drive 2011 Ford Flex with the naturally aspirated 3.5-liter V6 engine, water pump replacement calls for 10.8 hours of book labor. 10.8!
Assuming a relatively inexpensive labor rate of $120 an hour at an independent shop, that’s definitely more than a grand in labor alone. Turbocharged models are even worse, with a 2011 Flex Ecoboost water pump replacement calling for 12.3 hours of labor. However, that’s assuming a water pump suffered from vane failure or if a water pump leaks caught early enough from the tiny weep hole to not cause further damage. There’s another failure mode that could be much worse.
Remember those seals we talked about earlier? Well, because the water pump on a transversely mounted Cyclone V6 is driven by the timing chain, on the other side of a series of seals and bearings from the coolant sits an oil-lubricated cavity for the timing chain. If you’ve ever seen the results of an internally blown head gasket, you can probably see where this is going.
Should the seals fail and an owner keeps topping up the coolant instead of dealing with the problem, coolant can mix with the engine oil, potentially resulting in engine damage due to compromised lubrication. In the event this happens, and it certainly has to owners, the most sensible path forward is replacing the entire engine with a good used unit. This Ford Edge owner’s story runs along those lines, stating that “I ended up having the entire motor replaced” due to coolant mixing with oil.
Taking a look at complaints owners have made to NHTSA, it seems that this worst-case scenario can get seriously expensive, and it certainly isn’t a fluke event. This 2010 Flex owner was quoted $5,000 for engine replacement, and that seems to be on the medium end of things. Some owners claim to have been quoted upward of $7,000 for engine replacement due to water pump failure, and even in today’s market, that’s entire used car money.
If you have a 2011-2019 Ford Explorer, 2007-2018 Ford Edge, Ford Flex, Ford Taurus X, 2008-2019 Ford Taurus, 2010-2012 Ford Fusion Sport, 2007-2016 Lincoln MKZ, 2007-2018 Lincoln MKX, Lincoln MKT, Lincoln MKS, 2017-2020 Lincoln Continental, 2008-2009 Mercury Sable, 2009-2013 Mazda 6, or 2007-2015 Mazda CX-9 with one of these engines, water pump replacement could be in your future.
With older and especially high-mileage models, chances are it isn’t worth much if it’s knocking on the door of 15 years old. It’s no secret that depreciation happens, but as cars reach that well-used point, a big repair can sometimes cost more than half of the vehicle’s value.
For instance, assuming $1,296 in labor, a list price of $152.91 for an OEM water pump, fresh coolant to top up the system, and a few miscellaneous shop supplies like RTV gasket maker to reseal the timing cover, this repair will end up hitting the $1,500 mark on the low end if you catch the failure early.
Some owners are reporting repair bills costing more than $2,000 to fix a failed water pump, possibly due to higher labor rates. On a 200,000-mile 2011 Ford Flex that’s worth $3,900 in good condition, that’s a tough pill to swallow for a best-case scenario in which water pump failure is caught early and treated before coolant can mix with the oil.
Lots of Fords with these transversely mounted 3.5-liter and 3.7-liter engines were great vehicles when they were new, and I have a particular soft spot for the Ford Flex. However, I probably wouldn’t recommend a high-mileage car with one of these engines, and if you do find a Flex Ecoboost you want in nice condition, it’s a good idea to keep a few grand around for water pump replacement so you won’t be caught off guard with a crazy repair bill.
Top graphic credit: Ford
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“While timing chains from non-German manufacturers are generally maintenance-free for the life of the vehicle…”
…timing chains from German manufacturers often determine the life of the vehicle!
To an automaker, this is a feature not a bug. Cars lasting more than 15 years is a bad thing, it costs them sales. The faster vehicles depreciate and thus get totaled by small accident or mechanical failure, the more churn in the market and more people have to buy newer and even faster depreciating vehicles.
Bingo, in several years to a decade we’ll probably have another article about wet oil pump belts in various Ford and GM motors “totalling” out Trax’s, F-150’s, etc.
276k trouble-free miles on 2012 NA AWD Flex. Funny, I don’t really need it anymore but can’t find the motivation to get rid of it.
I have a 13 Edge that I bought totaled at 4 years old and rebuilt myself. I had about $7k into all said and done. Today it’s at 160k and hasn’t really needed anything but normal maintenance items. It owes me nothing, and is really worth nothing, so I might as well keep driving it until the water pump goes.
Chrysler (2.7L V6) and Nissan (multiple engines) also went with this monumentally bad idea.
I’ve changed out the 3.5/3.7 Ford timing chain and water pump in-car on Tauruses (not so bad), an Explorer (slightly worse), and a Flex (I should’ve dropped the powertrain out and made it easy on myself). They’re a great moneymaker for me. They take me about a day, and I’ve gotten to the point I can do the whole job, including torque specs, from memory.
that is my conversation with my Mazda dealer last week: (I have 2011 cx-9 with a noisy timing chain when it is a cold cold outside) he literally said “keep driving with a slappy chain, nothing major will happen. watch your temperature and oil/coolant mixture/level as When the pump comes (it’s not if, it’s when) and it is not too late (did not seize) you will have to make a call if it is worth doing.
as per Mazda repair protocol engine goes out for water pump and you do everything if you decide to do it at all. Most of owners do not do it (for obvious reasons) and they end up overheating.
A plastic water pump impeller killed my 98 Ford Contour with the 2.5L V6.
the other side is that the timing chains and guides are usually “while your in there” added costs. sad really, the F150 water pump on the outside design does not add an appreciably larger engine envelope. it should have never been a design consideration.
Sisu engines (heavy diesel equipment) used to have a gear driven water pump that operated off the timing gear drive. Of course just like with Ford’s engine this could lead to water in the oil and kill the engine. Ultimately after a number of years Sisu switched to a belt driven pump.
This is one of those risk vs reward cases where the risk far out weighs the reward.
GM had this kind of a setup on their 2.2L fours, that were derived from the Quad Four. I had a Grand Am with this engine. It was a lot of fun to drive, until the water pump leaked then failed every 45k miles and cost about $900 in 1990s dollars to replace. Required a teardown of the front of the transversely installed engine.
The guy who did this for me the second time said it was one of the worst jobs he could think of.
This happened to my Brother In Law’s Edge couple of years ago. Luckily, the water pump locked up / timing chain broke or came off while on interstate, so it died immediately, so didn’t get the long term coolant in oil issue.
Dealer would not fix, only replace engine due to possible coolant in oil ruining main bearings.
Went to an independent mechanic who fixed it.
He’s put a lot of miles on it since then!
This is a great example of why I am done with modern ICE’s. Any given electric vehicle has about 4-5 “black boxes” bolted on top of one another, each with a value less than $1000. When one fails, you remove and replace as needed. Labor and complexity is so much lower.
I’ve done at least a dozen water pumps in my life, and I’m done with them. I don’t hate working on them, but I would rather delegate that time to be during my free time, not my “I’ve got to get to work on Monday” time.
Eh, it’s a valid reason to be done with poorly-designed vehicles. Some models/years of EV’s have constant problems. Some models/years of ICE’s have constant problems.
It’s not inherent to ICE’s. My ‘yota is well over 200k miles with original everything (including water pump, alternator, A/C, etc). Nearly everything that has needed replacement on it is something that an EV would need as well (ball joints, shocks, hatch struts, a couple sun-damaged bits of window trim).
Very much agree. I have no issues swapping out ball joints and suspension bits. Stuff that is pretty predictable and offers a lot of early feedback that it will fail. This is the stuff that does not stop you from getting to work very often when compared to drivetrain/powerplant issues.
The downside of an EV is that if it stops and pulls over on the side of the road, chances are you (me/us/we) will have no idea what went wrong. Can’t just pop the hood and see the intake boot somehow pulled off the throttle body.
The trouble with those cheap black boxes is that once the manufacturer stops building replacements in ten years and the bespoke ICs they contain are no longer produced the aftermarket is very unlikely to pick up the slack.
Couldn’t agree more. No clue how that is going to play out.
Rear Drive unit on the Tesla S’s is pretty well known for the cooling system to fail inside the housing and take out most of the unit before anyone knows it is a problem. The bad design awards go to a lot of new things as of late. Common Sense does not seem all that common these days.
Nah, that is just a rookie mistake, IMHO. That said, this is the first time most of these companies have an opportunity to make these rookie mistakes, DUH.
Good thing is there should be a lot in the junkyard.
Like, I get it $1500 is expensive. But, if the vehicle is otherwise in good condition, and it gets you to work and back, or offsets other costs of transportation, this is a tiny price to pay. What’s the alternative? Losing $1500 on a new or used vehicle the minute you sign for it? $1000 in interest alone over the life of a loan, not to mention tens of thousands in depreciation? A bus pass in my city is $780 a year.
Good to document this, but the “mechanically totaled” nonsense has got to stop. The value of a vehicle is not in what you can sell it for but what it does for you. If it provides over $1500 of utility in a reasonable amount of time, it’s $1500 well spent. Just because it may not be able to be resold for $1500 is moot. For a lot of people, that $1500 will allow the car to get them to and from work for years to comes. Making that $1500 a wise expenditure.
I do 100% agree in principal. Just because the car on paper is not worth much, a nicely kept one might actually be worth the investment vis-a-vis what it would cost to get a comparable used car in the same shape.
However, I actually just got a quote for the very thing on my 2013 Taurus w/120k on the clock. The pump does not appear to weep yet so it is preventative, but at this age of this engine probably a very good idea, given the multitude of other 3.5L owners’ horror stories.
My car is in an almost like-new shape all around (technically worth peanuts on open market) I have no intention of selling it in the foreseeable future, if maybe ever. The issue is that none of the few reputable shops around are even willing to do it because access in the Taurus is so bad. So the only viable option is the dealership which gave me a price – just this past Friday – of $4,800 for the timing/water pump job. Now that’s some serious coin even if I factor in ~800-1000 in timing parts, which whatever shape they’re in would be stupid not to do at that point.
So with tax I’m at 5k and that’s a very bitter pill to swallow. Had it actually been ~1,500 I probably wouldn’t even bat an eye.
Yikes. How much was their labor rate?
Their rate is $165/hr which is actually not too horrible, but according to the service mgr for the 6th gen Taurus they have to drop the engine, so it’s a 2-day job per their book.
same with my 2011 CX-9…..
$4800 sounds like a lot; I’m a fleet manager and we have a slew of Taurus’s and Explorers with the 3.7, so I have a lot of experience with this buried water pump. Our local dealership charges us about $2200 for the WP job, and that’s in NorCal where labor rates are pretty high.
I really had no idea if the $4800 was high, glad you have some firsthand knowledge!
Time to ditch the stealership service center and find a quality independent shop.
I don’t actually use the dealer for any work whatsoever, ever. I maintain and work on my car by myself, exclusively. But engines/transmissions, I cannot do. Lacking both knowledge and actual place/tools to do it.
Frankly, I don’t really trust the “quality independent shops” either, been burned too many times by hack jobs. So this particular job I feel like I have to run thru the dealer if only for OEM parts and possibly (probably not) some recourse if they F it up. It really sucks because I truly love and enjoy my car and this should not be necessary on what is arguably one of most pedestrian cars.
I have been thinking about it for some time and probably more than a normal person would. but I have convinced myself that the job of this kind I would trust only dealer to do. saving $1500 on $6000 job (I am taking Canadian Dollars, sorry) at indy shop takes a much bigger gambler than I am. at least i know if something goes south after repair I am dealing with a dealer (does not protect you anyway in some cases, I am talking about my dealer I deal with ,they are honest people)
We got burned by putting good money in a good older vehicle. Had a Windstar minivan and trans went out. Otherwise, it was in perfect condition, so spent the money for a 5yr warranty reman.trans. Also put on new tires. Couple of months later, van was totaled by an uninsured/unlicensed moron when cut through cross traffic right in front of my wife. She didnt even have time to hit the brakes. Guess how much money our uninsured motorist coverage paid for the van? Book value, of course. Much less than what we had just spent on the trans/tires. Doesnt matter to the insurance company.
We tend to keep newer cars now and ditch if they appear to have upcoming major repairs.
Yeah that sucks. BUT. If it’s worth driving because of it’s utility but it’s book value isn’t very much, this is always a possibility.
It’s almost as if they (insurance companies and car makers) designed it to function this way for their benefit. In the long run you are spending more money with both of them. Buying cars for frequently and insuring newer cars at a higher replacement value which means higher premiums. The odds of what happened to you happening again are pretty slim.
The same engine in an F150 is a 300-700 dollar job. and you don’t have to worry about the timing chains or oil contamination. I could do the job in my drive way on those with pretty basic tools for under 100. Less so when I have to take the timing system apart to get tot he water pump.
And then they make huge margins on trucks. 🙂
Now you’re making me want V-6 truck….
i am being quoted about $6000 CAD for water pump replacement on my 2011 CX-9. and I think I will either find a cheaper way to do it or go with this dealer quoted estimate. I brough both of my kids from hospital in it and sentimental value is now grown on me. it is also in a good condition otherwise and a trouble free car. literally no bugs to live with. I agree it is not about market value only
I’ve commented the same on some previous articles, like one about a GM transmission that’s prone to fail at higher mileages and “total” the vehicle. It was something like an old Tahoe that’s built like a tank and the transmission is basically the only known trouble spot, so if you put a couple grand into it for a new transmission you get another 150k from the vehicle. Seems like that’s worth it, even if the book value says otherwise.
Yes, I’ve told friends this as well; and a few weeks later they just went and bought a new car because their old paid off one “wasn’t worth fixing” Enjoy your new car payment for six years then, I guess…
I agree and am going to continue to shout at the clouds that “mechanically totaled” is not a thing. Totaled means “Total Writeoff” unless you’ve paid for an extended warranty, no one is evaluating your repair bill against the cost of the car and deciding not to fix it. Furthermore, there is no payoff, it’s just junk if you don’t fix it.
I’m not sure why this phrase bugs me so much, it’s probably the click-baityness of it. FWIW calling parts failures an “Achilles Heel” bothers me too
/getoffmylawn
Amen my friend.
At first I was worried because you said “Old”, but then I realized these are minimum 6 years newer than mine. Worry free again.
I bought a 2013 Mazda CX-9 with a bad waterpump with 117k miles on it for $1500. The pump didn’t only leak, but had complete bearing failure. The timing chain skipped time bending all 12 intake valves and punching a hole in the timing cover. I pulled the heads, replaced the valves, removed the oil pan and cleaned the sludge and the oil pump screen. Replaced the pump, timing components and timing cover. Did this without pulling the engine. Total parts cost $1000. I now have a car that cost 40k when new for $2500 and it should be good for another 100k miles.
nice for you man. the devil is in your skills. not many of us can do it