Water pump!!!!

MAZDAROGER

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Mazda CX9 2008
So was dropping my daughter off at school when with no notice....the cx9 just shut off. My wife jumped started the car and it started but made a few weird noise as my wife explained. SHe made it down the road a mile when steam started coming out form under the hood. She calls me and I find coolan in the oil. Lots of it. No oil in the coolant. I'm thinking bad water pump seal. Problem is its not an easy fix. Engine has to come out to replace waterpump gasket!!!! Any help Recommendations??(mad)
 
Generally a failed water pump wont introduce coolant into the oil. That sounds more like a possible blown head gasket, or possibly a intake manifold gasket or something else along those lines.
 
Water pump has to be replaced also. I had it done a little over a year ago. That is a very expensive job almost 2 grand. I had it covered under my extended warranty. I only paid the deductible plus 20 for the oil change. I was told by the dealer that these pumps rarely go and that i shouldn't have any problems with the replacement.
 
That's weird it needed a jump to start it again... I'm agreeing with monoxide on this one, as it's probably something more than water pump to get coolant in the oil.

Is just a water pump what a repair shop told you?
 
The service advisor told me that when the water pump goes bad some of the coolant gets into the oil. this pump is gear driven by the timing chain. I guess that is why. That is also the reason why they change the oil and the filter on the car.
 
How many miles on the car? What is the repair estimate.

The Waterpump on these cars scare me. I think it is a very poor design to need to get the engine and transmission out to change a waterpump. They are maintenance items and should be easy to service.
 
There are several varieties of V6 engines that are designed this way, with the water pump driven by the timing chain, and hence bathed in oil.. They are all ticking time bombs in my opinion, unless you proactivly replace the water pump at some high mileage point. Most are designed with a weep hole/passage to allow coolant to appear externally some where when the pump shaft seal goes bad. You MAY notice it if you're lucky (under your vehicle looking for damp areas or a sharp-eyed service guy spots it), but it seems more often than not the problem will present itself with coolant in the oil, often ruining the entire engine before its caught. Just talk to owners of Chrysler vehicles that have/had the 2.7L V6. That engine is notorious for this. I believe Ford/Mazda has better quality in their design and parts, but it is still the same basic potential for a really bad day.
 
mad! Frustrated! Dissapointed...

A friend lent me his cx9, drove it for 8 minutes! And wam! died on me??? thought it was the fuel pump!, never heated, never saw coolant leaking... SURPRISE! all the coolant was flowing freely into the crankcase! I have to agree, really bad day.... oh yea, really bad design too...! (Should be illegal)
 
Im really scared after reading this post. My 07' CX9 recently sprung a pretty significant coolant leak coming from the bottom of the engine. No radiator, hose or expansion tank leaks.. So far it does not appear that my oil is contaminated but it seems ridiculous to have to pull the engine/tranny to change the water pump! My CX-9 has 149,500 miles and im getting really scared. After I get this leak fixed Im most likely going to sell or trade it in. Ive also heard horror stories about the transfer case having issues and im hearing a mysterious click when I shift gears into R or D when cold. The dealer cant figure it out either. If its my water pump leaking I sure hope there is no internal engine damage!
 
So a little update after getting it to the dealer.. My water pump is bad. It has a slow leak through the weep hole but it is not leaking into the oil yet and the engine is solid! That's great news! The other part of this is that I had a second leak as well. At first they didn't know where it was coming from. They said it might be a freeze plug which had me puzzled on how a car that is always garaged and well maintained could pop a freeze plug. They quoted me quite a bit of labor to fix both water pump and the freeze plugs, but said they would see if they could get a more definite answer on the heavy leak after they pull the engine. Once they pulled the engine they found a broken antifreeze hose that runs in the valley of the engine that is leaking bad. Phew! That saved me about 5 hours of labor for not doing the freeze plug (The one behind the transmission requiring the tranny and engine to be separated.)

Im anticipating probably an $1800-$1900 bill for the water pump and leaky hose.
 
I am glad they seem to have found the problem but still this is horrible. A water pump replacement on my Mercedes E55 AMG ran $400. Far less on other cars. Ridiculous for Mazda (and Ford) to have to charge that much for a Mazda or Ford product. This seems more like a Maserati level of expense. Terrible design. THEY HAD BETTER BE giving you a lifetime warranty on the new water pump and their work for this incredibly disproportionate expense.
 
They only warranty it for 12 months and 12k miles. Also that hose that they found broken does the engine need to come out to replace this hose? If so what would the charge be for this repair?
 
They only warranty it for 12 months and 12k miles. Also that hose that they found broken does the engine need to come out to replace this hose? If so what would the charge be for this repair?

That's bullsh!t. No idea but if you have to pull an engine to change a hose (probably a tube) I would hope that Mazda and Ford would stand behind their product and poor design to protect their brand name. I don't recall the salesman, when I bought the car, telling me that the water pump and tube will go as a normal wear item and run me $2,000 in about 135,000 miles.
 
I was reading further down and it says that the newer duratecs are cyclone engines. My question is then do we have a duractec or cyclone engine? also if is a pipe I would figure it would be inside the lower manifold like my windstar had.
 
When we were coming home after the incident, I stopped at the dealer to check on the vehicle. Here are some photos of the tear down:



I'll keep everyone posted on my progress. I'm not ready to take this to Facebook or Twitter. I want to work with Ford as much as possible before taking the next step.
 
I guess I couldn't copy and paste the pic of the explorer that was torn down for the water pump. They didn't even remove the engine from the car and you can see the water pump. I am wondering if they have more space in the engine bay than the 9
 
water pump I hope the image should be attached.
 

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