My family has owned *many* Toyotas all the way back to a 1975 Celica GT, and I'm just recently finding out about how fragile and trouble-prone and leaky Toyota water pumps are. I own 3 Toyotas right now, and the fragile water pump thing scares me. On some Toyota & Lexus models, the water pump is over $2,000 to replace.

I'm kind of afraid to drive mine now that I know the water pump is bound to detonate at any moment. Over on the Facebook Lexus group, there are owners talking about water pumps going bad on Lexus cars with only 30,000 miles! No kidding.

Toyota water pumps are made by AISIN and fail early; Honda water pumps are made by AISIN and last much longer. What the heck is going on?

Funny, I’ve owned 6 Toyotas and have never had a problem.

When did these problems start? I’m about to roll over 400k and haven’t even changed the oil yet

"Most Toyota vehicles, unfortunately, will see water pump failure during their life. We don’t know what the correlation is, but all Toyota vehicles that we service here have commonality for water pump failures, whether it’s the 1ZZ-FE, the 2ZZ-FE or even the more modern V6s and V8s, we seem to see a pretty common problem with these Toyota water pumps." --Master Mechanic Saul Reisman from Colorado, 2019

I’ll keep driving mine, tundra is best truck I’ve ever owned

I've now got over 800k miles on Toyota and Lexus vehicles and never had a water pump go out. Matter of fact , the only thing I've ever had an issue with is a wheel bearing that was caused by ill-fitting after market wheels. Currently have 230k miles on a 2011 4Runner with the original water pump and 95k on a Lexus with original water pump.

Besides don’t ALL water pumps eventually fail? It’s a replaceable part and it’s not uncommon to replace on any make/model.

I’m in the owned several crowd, never had a problem with water pump.

291K on my 08 long bed Taco and so far so good. I did break a front axle this last hunting season though.

The problems happen when you let Toyota motors run hot. I don’t know if it has to do with what kind of metal the engine block is made out of, or the total mass of the block, but if you burn a water pump and don’t stop as soon as you realize it’s running hot, you might as well run it off into the river and collect the insurance.

Given, any truck will keel over if you run it hot long enough. It just seems like Toyotas are more sensitive to it. It’s just the Achilles heel to an otherwise bulletproof vehicle.

You lie... because the warranty required the oil to be changed on certain internals. I know they are supposed to be bulletproof but not at zero oil changes for 400k miles. I know he’s joking and so was I.

I think he’s probably joking.

I have had 3 different Toyotas with 4.7 v8, two tundra and still own the Sequoia. I have always changed the water pumps at 100,000 miles. However, my current ride has 379,000 and the current water pump,has 179,000 under its belt. I just add water if the radiator overflow is empty. I need a rear main engine seal too. I will pay to get both done because it is 4wd and a great little ride. I am confudent it will last longer than my desire to keep it. I see that day more than 80,000 miles down the road, since I put 80,000 mile tires on a couple months ago.

You can get on any vehicle message board and find all kind of issues with the different trucks. GM trucks have known issues with lifters and transmissions failing. The TCM (transmission control module) in my 3500HD went out back in October/November and sat in the yard until I found a place that could fix it. A new TCM normally costs about $400 and just plugs in (does have to be programmed at dealer). It became such a problem that now, GM couldn't make one (or have one made) that worked as long as it should. When I started having issues with mine, GM was putting out a expected due date of January. January came and due date was changed to March, then April. Now they're saying July, maybe. You can find them all day long on Ebay, but you'll pay out the wazoo for one; a cheap USED one on Ebay will run you anywhere from $3000 to $7500. New one? Try about $10K...for a $400 part. I finally found a place that has had success repairing them and gives a lifetime warrany on the repairs. Set me back $1200

We have an 05 Tahoe that we got brand new. In the 320000+ miles we've put on it, I've replaced the water pump twice and had it replaced once. That's a failure rate of 1 pump every 106000 miles. I probably need to run that joker off into the river and write it off.

Buddy of mine has 3 Toyota vehicles and his wife has 1, all ranging from 2016 up to 2021 and he's never had a water pump failure. My wife had a 2020 4Runner and never had a failure. She has a '23 now and so far no failure. If you're that worried about it, you should sale them all and get a bunch of bikes, but just be warned...Huffy bikes are known to have the chain fail; Schwinn bikes suffer from loose spokes on the wheels; Mongoose bikes have bad brakes

Whatcha gonna do?

Yota’s walk and drive on water, didn’t y’all know that?

@3Toe — I understand your point. I’m pretty loyal to Toyota, yet I’m the first to say that they wear out and break down just like any other brand … usually at a slower rate though. I’ve had to replace PLENTY of failed parts on my Toyotas — the most being on my pampered 2013 Tacoma 4WD.

I've owned 4 toyotas and 3 had 300k+ miles and never replaced a water pump

310,000 on my 02 Taco and never had a problem. I DO replace the water pump whenever i have the timing chain replaced though, preventative maintenance.

We bought my wife a Lexus GX460 a year ago. The vehicle has less then 50K on it and it's headed to shop for a failing water pump and a leaking transfer case. Thankfully the vehicle still has some powertrain warranty left!! The service advisor at Lexus told me these two things were common failures and they keep parts on hand. She did note it was it bit premature for the failures on my wife's vehicle. Needless to say my wife is not a happy camper that a vehicle with low miles is already experiencing mechanical issues!!

My water pump went out on my 21 Silverado with 38000 on it. They are pretty much all junk now.