The wife's 1.4 MPI Fabia has a dodgy water pump-steam is coming out from under the pulley-so it's time to replace it. It's a chain driven engine, not a cambelt type.

How much would I be looking at spending at an average back-street garage?

As a DIY job, how simple is it? What are the gotchas? How long should it take? Any special tools?

TIA

Dave

can be a bit fidaly the pipe on the bottom can be chewy to get off the pump is part of the engine mount and got nothing to do with the chain if you are half decent with the spanners you should be ok and no special tools needed

Edited 28 December, 201114 yr by nath17t

As above. It's only driven by the auxiliary drive belt. If that's not been replaced in a while, a good opportunity to renew that too.

I'm guessing you need to support the engine once the pump is removed as it forms part of the mount.

Had a quick look (With a torch) and looks like there are 3 torx bolts holding the pulley on. Apart from this it's all just nuts and bolts, presumably?

(Have worked a lot on Citroens and no matter what job it is there's always at least one fixing needing a special tool..)

Dave

Get a Haynes manual for the Fabia it has it in there.......I would post the info but am at work and Haynes is at home!!!

Get a Haynes manual for the Fabia it has it in there.......I would post the info but am at work and Haynes is at home!!!

Thanks!

Now sorted! Thanks for eveyone's help.

(Took it to a local garage in the end-too much to do before new year so couldn't fit it in-but bought the pump myself.)

What follows are some random notes which should help anyone searching the forum in the future, especially as some of the early symptoms might not immediately suggest water pump failure:

Before the pump was replaced we noticed that the car had a tendancy to mist up on the inside of the glass. There was also a slight smell of anti freeze but only when the heater was set to hot. I assumed this was a leaky heater matrix but it seems that steam from the leaky water pump was being sucked directly into the air inlet!

There was the occasional squeak from the aux belt - unfortunately, every time we inspected it any moisture had dried up and gone away. It was only the last day or two that the leak became bad enough to see before it dried up.

With regards replacement the engine mount is held in place by three bolts and a nut (IIRC). There's then three torx bolts to remove to remove the pulley. The pump is then held in place by four nuts and a jubilee clip. I would have photographed it all but couldn't get the camara in there.

Shop around for a new pump! Prices quoted ranged between £36 inc vat for one online up to well over £60 ex vat! In the end I ended up paying £37+VAT for one I could collect same day.

Edited 29 December, 201114 yr by Calmore

Before the pump was replaced we noticed that the car had a tendancy to mist up on the inside of the glass.

A normal feature of Fabia's. Leaky door carriers (notably rears), and also rear washer pipe.