Hi ,

I have a 94 honda accord and my water pump needs to be replaced. My mechanic is quoting $600 for that. Is it reasonable? What would be the normal cost to do the job?
Thanks for your help.

Rishi.

 

Dear Rishi,

Your need of changing the water pump can be done yourself and a lot of money can be saved. Is $600 worth it? It depends on how good you are at working on cars. For my situation, I invested about $150 for a timing belt, balance shaft belt, Alt. Belt, Power Steering Belt, New Antifreeze, Sealant, and a special tool that is needed if you want your car done within 3 days. This tool looks like a inverted socket welded onto a breaker bar and many rumors of people using impact gun instead doesn't budge the large bolt at all. Is the mechanic reasonable? I don't thinks so due to the fact that they tend to overcharge big time.

 

600 bucks sounds pretty ridiculous to me, a brand new water pump at most should cost 95 bucks, and that's from acuraautomotiveparts.org. 500 bucks for labor? ripoff

 

damn, 600 bucks, i paid like 400, and got all my belts changed, and water pump changed, including labor. sounds like your getting ripped off.

 

What a ******* thieve. You shouldn't pay more then $500-$550 for OEM parts and installation. Now you know not to go back to him or recommend him to your friends.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rishi_22m_22m &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Hi ,

I have a 94 honda accord and my water pump needs to be replaced. My mechanic is quoting $600 for that. Is it reasonable? What would be the normal cost to do the job?
Thanks for your help.

Rishi.</TD></TR></TABLE>

tell him i said to put his finger in his butt and smell it

 

Hi Guys,

Thanks everyone for your help. I did not go to that guy who quoted 600 bucks, but I went to pepboys and found out that it was not the water pump but a bad installation of the water pump by the mechanic who did it earlier. He didnt put a spring which was supposed to go with the water pump and it broke the tensioner. So they replaced it and the timing belt. It costed about 550. I know it is a bit high, but they were able to diagonise it well and fix the problem.
Thank you all for the responses.

-R

 

uh...so it was still the water pump then. anyways, glad you got it figured out and fixed.

 

The $600 quote was probably for the whole kit: water pump, timing belts and seals. Most techs know better than to just replace a water pump on a '94 Accord. He still spent $550 at Pepboy—that should tell you something.
On a side note, a Honda dealership probably would have been about the same price or less.

Too bad you do not live around me, rishi. I would have done the whole job, with OEM parts, for under $300.

 

More like less then $100 plus labor(Doing it yourself) .

Caleb

 

umm its a 4 hour job maxx, and u can remove the crank bolt easly with 1" impact gun i think she has over 2000ft torque in reverse, i bought form a buss company

i use it on all the honda timming belts i do...all other cars u can remove with sockect and hammer, but damn honda at 185ftlbs

 

just on a side note, how hard is the job? let's say i have done brakes, front and back, radiator swaping, putting it in and taking it out, oil change- i am really sceptical about doing it myself guys but, on the other hand,- i just bought the freaking service manual (man what a sweet thing it is) - AND I UNDERSTOOD EVERYTHING(MAYBE, JUST A LITTLE BIT CONFUSED ON THE TDC PART AT THE START, BUT HAYNES CLEARED THAT UP FOR ME)... i really want an honest opinion... i am planning to take the car to a shop and them untighten it for me (i am wondering if they would have to charge me for taking apart the alternator to get to it)).... i really need some comments... by the way, please don't accuse me of laziness.... i have actually done a search and know where to buy that tool for removal of the bolt... etc... PLEASE COMMENT

 

Response to digme:

Well, it's like this. If you take your car to the shop to have them loosen the bolt, you might as well have them change all the belts and water pump. On the other hand, if you decide to do it yourself, you can save a lot of money. As for the difficulties of this job, it is defiantly more challenging then brakes(Which I've have done myself) but not like rebuilding an engine(If you know what I mean!). The Alt. and P.S. Belt are a pain to get off, but with a little time and effort it will come off(DO NOT, I MEAN DO NOT CUT THE BELT BECAUSE IF YOU CAN'T GET IT OFF WITHOUT CUTTING THE BELT, YOU WILL NOT GET IT ON!). But other than this, basic tool skills and common sense.

Good Luck!
Caleb

 

I think the hardest part of the whole job is getting that crank bolt loose. Once that is taken care of everything else is easy. Just follow the manual and you'll be all set.

As for it being a waste to have a shop loosen it and then not have them do the service I don't agree. You figure you can buy all the parts (timing belt, balancer shaft belt, water pump, water pump gasket, tensioner springs, and accessory belts) for about $150 from Majestic Honda. So you can't get that bolt off so you take it to a shop and lets say they charge you $50 (which most shops will either do it for free or small charge) so now your talking about a total of $200 instead of paying the shop something like $400 to do the whole thing. I've heard of many people having shops lossen it and then retighen it, but not as tight, then drive staright home with no problems.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by TouringAccord &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I think the hardest part of the whole job is getting that crank bolt loose. Once that is taken care of everything else is easy. Just follow the manual and you'll be all set.

As for it being a waste to have a shop loosen it and then not have them do the service I don't agree. You figure you can buy all the parts (timing belt, balancer shaft belt, water pump, water pump gasket, tensioner springs, and accessory belts) for about $150 from Majestic Honda. So you can't get that bolt off so you take it to a shop and lets say they charge you $50 (which most shops will either do it for free or small charge) so now your talking about a total of $200 instead of paying the shop something like $400 to do the whole thing. I've heard of many people having shops lossen it and then retighen it, but not as tight, then drive staright home with no problems.</TD></TR></TABLE>What's your time worth? You're talking $200 + your own labor, and it's extremely likely to damage the engine if you do it wrong. If it's his first timing belt, I'm sure it will take a whole day—probably a whole weekend.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by AngryTroll &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">What's your time worth? You're talking $200 + your own labor, and it's extremely likely to damage the engine if you do it wrong. If it's his first timing belt, I'm sure it will take a whole day—probably a whole weekend.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Don't get me wrong. I'm very busy and don't have enough time to finish what I need to get done as it is. But if we're talking about saving $200 or maybe more, I'm going to make time to do it myself. Yes, it might take him a whole day but think of the experience he'll get while doing it. To me thats worth quite a bit. Granted if something is done wrong then there is a lot of things that can be damaged. Thats why I said, as long as he follows the manual he'll be set. The Helms manual gives good descriptions of things and is very easy to follow, I don't know about Haynes or Chiltons though. I think I read through the procedure at least a dozen times before doing mine, then I referenced back to it during the change to make sure I was doing it right. In the end it comes down to does he have a weekend to do it himself and does he feel confident enough to do it himself.