Hey, Scotty Love your Content. I have a 2011 Subaru Forester, 4cyl, non-turbo, with 166,000 miles. I want to drive this thing until the wheels fall off,and thus try to keep up with maintenance. Water pump is original but no leaks or issues. Should I change it now or wait for signs of failing?
Nice amount of miles on the og water pump. I would wait. A good saying is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" I stand by that. It's also very very obvious to see if your water pump starts to fail typically.
If it is in an easy access location and easy to remove and replace, the adage above works: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
With that said, if it is in a labor intensive pain in the ass location connected to a whole bunch of other stuff like timing belts and balancing belts, and you have to replace all the other stuff, might as well spend the extra money changing the water pump out.
The water pump on Subaru boxer engines is not easy access and a pain in the a$$. Also, it's one of those jobs that if you're doing, probably good idea to do, pulleys and belt tensioner, and the timing belt because they're all in play (meaning have to remove them) when changing the water pump. And because the timing belt comes off, you run the risk of messing up the timing if not done correctly.
