At 142,200 miles my water pump finally started having problems last week. It was not leaking but it was making noise and had a good bit of side-to-side play in the pulley shaft. I bought a new pump at Napa, thinking their parts are supposed to be better quality. Unfortunately, it wasn't.

Inside the hole on the pump where the heater bypass tube goes it was drilled out very poorly. Down at the bottom of the hole there were a lot of sharp edges and burrs in the metal, right where the o-ring for the tube is seated. When I put the pump on it leaked real bad from that hole. I bought another tube and it did the same thing. Plus the heater bypass tube they send with the water pump does not mount to the bolt on the AC/Alternator cradle correctly. The mounting flange is in the wrong spot on the tube and it puts the flange directly over the hole for the bolt that you are supposed to use to hold the tube in place.

The heater bypass tubes from Napa, Advance and Autozone are all the same and they don't fit right. I had to cut part of the flange off and use a big washer on the mounting bolt to hold it in place. But it still leaked and since I had cut it, I could not return it.
I had to get the tube from the dealer, it cost $29.00 but it fit and worked perfectly.

I had to remove the Napa water pump and take it back to Napa. They didn't have another one in stock so I had to drive 8 miles away to the next closest Napa. I checked their pump and it was excatly the same. It had sharp edges and burrs down in that hole for the heater hose bypass tube. It's like they drilled it off center or maybe off angle and the end of the drill wallered out and buggered up the metal inside the hole. It's aluminum and very soft metal anyway so I guess that might be easy to do. The odd thing was we checked a reman pump at Napa and the metal inside that bypass tube hole was fine. It was smooth like anodized aluminum. But I sure didn't want to put a reman water pump on my truck.

I returned the Napa pump for a refund and went to the Dodge dealer to buy the OEM bypass tube. I would have checked out a water pump at the dealer but they were out of stock on it. I went down the street and bought a new Duralast pump with a lifetime warranty at Autozone for $58.00. The bypass tube hole on that one is perfect, nice and smooth all the way down. Plus the Duralast pump says right on the box "Made IN USA". It also says "Exported To Mexico". The Napa pump was made in China and is not good quality at all. Very bad workmanship.

When I put the Duralast pump on, I used Permatex 1A sealant, it is made for water pumps and thermostats, and I put a smear of it around the heater bypass tube, above the o-ring and I put a bead around the outside top edge of the tube too to help seal it off. Got the truck all back together and there are no leaks at all, truck seems to be running fine, it just has more condensation out the tail pipe in the morning now. The cooling system needs to burp itself for a while. I am checking the coolant levels every day to be sure it's full.

I'm not posting this to bash or disparage Napa. I am posting to let everyone know, if you buy a new Tru-Flow water pump fro your truck at Napa, be sure to check the heater bypass tube hole for burrs and sharp edges. I wish I had known about it to start with. And no matter what pump you use, get the new bypass tube at Dodge. It costs more but it fits right and works great. The trouble and headaches you save is well worth $29.00 ( The list price was $43.00, they gave me a discount when I complained about the price.)

I hope this long post saves some of us here some trouble and headache.

Jimmy

 

and to think i always thought they were supposed to have better parts than advaance or auto zone, i dont use them anyways but thanks for the info

 

Interesting, I just replaced my water pump this past summer with a replacement pump from Advance Auto Parts. Everything looked good and went together without any problems or leaks. I did buy a more expensive pump, not the lowest price one.

 

I like to use factory parts whenever possible (or within reason), though the high prices (often unjustifiably high, such as the $14 battery hold-down bolt I bought recently) prices are annoying.

A new Tru-Flow water pump from NAPA for your truck (which is the same as mine) is $66 from NAPA's site. A Mopar water pump is $106 from the various Mopar parts sites, and would probably be about the same from a dealership. Assuming the one you are replacing is the original one, it lasted for 10 years / 142,200 miles; so for something that only needs to be replaced once per decade or so, I wouldn't worry about the extra $40 to get the real thing.

 

Real is subjective...plus, you never know the batch your orig. pump came from vs the one you're buying 10 yrs later...just my 2cents.

I always look at phys quality and compare...Unfourtuantely, a lot of good parts dont always go to the same distributor/store....

 

"The real thing" = a part that was manufactured by, subcontracted by, or otherwise authorized by the company that made the vehicle. There is nothing subjective about it; it is a purely objective definition.

Now, whether or not the real thing is also the best thing; that can be subjective. In most cases, the real thing is also the best thing. Exceptions include when parts are redesigned by an aftermarket company specifically to solve a problem with the OEM design or to otherwise improve it.

This isn't generally the case with water pumps; the goal generally being to offer a functional version at a discounted price. You're more likely to see attempts on improving the OEM parts among the performance-related and utility-related parts. Such parts are often more expensive than OEM parts, because they are aimed at a completely different target market than the mundane things such as NAPA/AutoZone/Carquest water pumps / starters / fuel pumps / etc. are.