HI,

I was wondering if anyone can help. MY 2000 felicia 1.9 diesel overheats. I normally just keep the heaters on (no fun in summer) and it stays betwen 95 and 100 degrees. I've changed the sensors and the thermostat, but was wondering if it's the coolant pump. The car gets hotter on the motorway, and cooler in slow moving traffic. I have looked in the expansion tank and can see the water returning from the pipes in steady spurts, rather than a continuous flow - is this normal??

By the way, if it is the coolant pump, how hard is it to change? I noticed in the Haynes manual that it get 4 spanners for difficulty... I'm normally a 3 spanner kind of gal, so not sure whether or not to attempt.

Anyhow, thanks for reading, and any help or advice appreciated!

HI,

I was wondering if anyone can help. MY 2000 felicia 1.9 diesel overheats. I normally just keep the heaters on (no fun in summer) and it stays betwen 95 and 100 degrees. I've changed the sensors and the thermostat, but was wondering if it's the coolant pump. The car gets hotter on the motorway, and cooler in slow moving traffic. I have looked in the expansion tank and can see the water returning from the pipes in steady spurts, rather than a continuous flow - is this normal??

By the way, if it is the coolant pump, how hard is it to change? I noticed in the Haynes manual that it get 4 spanners for difficulty... I'm normally a 3 spanner kind of gal, so not sure whether or not to attempt.

Anyhow, thanks for reading, and any help or advice appreciated!

Sounds like the water pump impeller might be shot. Some are plastic and it's recommended to change the pump when fitting a new cam belt.

Not an easy job due to the lack of space to get to various bits.

Although someone will be along in a bit to tell you just how easy it is to do!

Thanks for the reply - I was tempted to have a go at it yesterday as I was draining the coolant out. Or rather the water and then topping up with coolant- learnt the hard way last year just how bad water is when it freezes!b Think that may be when the water pump was damaged as I tried to start the engine.

Anyhow, think I may leave it for a while - it may be a little out of my depth.

Thanks again

Hmmm, reading through the procedure for the diesel it sounds a fair bit more straightforward (and less knuckle-scraping) than for the 1.6, and having done mine recently I wouldn't call that particularly difficult. I think that difficulty rating is really for the 1.3 where the water pump housing doubles as the engine mount - with the VW engines it's simply an 'unbolt things until you can get at the bit you want' procedure, and on the diesel you don't even have to mess around with the timing belt! Plus I wouldn't give too much credit to what Haynes say on jobs like this - the long complicated steps usually turn out to be easy and the easy-sounding 'remove the old bit and put the new one in' steps never mention the hour-long fight against 10 years of corrosion holding the damn thing in...

True, the manual never mentions the bit that you just can't get off because it's too tight (until you hit it with something and it breaks - my car would have collapsed long before if it wasn't for Araldite).

Anyhow, I am tempted to have a bash at the weekend... I will let you know how it goes.

thanks for the replies!