Water pump impeller breaking-up

[G40DAS]

Ive just stripped my G40 to give the old girl a birthday and generally I'm gobsmacked what good condition the internals are for 166000 miles, the one really scary thing though was the waterpump (genuine VAG, replaced by me at about 80K after a VAG garage broke the original one trying to adjust the cam belt tension)
It only had one vane left on it !
It's the plastic impeller type and the vanes have just fallen off.
So far I found 3 of them, jammed in head water passages. Haven't found any more yet, I'm guessing they must be in the heater matrix somewhere as I can't see anything in the rad or the block.
Temperatures haven't been a problem, but I guess they would have been pretty quickly when the last vane fell-off !

Might be worth popping your water pumps out just to check what type of pumps you have, just in case.

I was putting a new pump on anyway, this one from GSF has a proper metal impeller.

[PeteG40]

good advice is to replace the cambelt AND water pump at least every 60k or 4 years. (most people this means approx. 40k miles) if you are doing the job yourself its really no extra work and the pumps are only £35 exchange from vw. or about £30 from gsf!

[hayesey]

wow that sucks, I assume there are no water pumps with metal impellers available?

[86C]

[quote pid=3937 author=hayesey date=1220692811]wow that sucks, I assume there are no water pumps with metal impellers available?[/quote]

GSF do ones with metal impellers. VW used to as far as I was aware? O_o

[lance]

i got mine from vw last year an it hat metal ones on 35 pound exchange.

[supercharged spaniel]

just replaced mine from vag...metal impellars too.

[G40DAS]

I've found all the blades from the impeller now, most were stuck in the head, one in the block. I hope the photos help you identify your pumps. I don't understand why it wasn't boiling-up and blowing water out. Temps were normal, I've hardness checked the head at work and that is fine, i.e not cooked.
 [attachment=169]  [attachment=168]

[Nev]

Wow, that's pretty bad. Good to hear the engine didnt overheat and you found all the broken fins. Never seen a plastic waterpump before either. Think I'll steer clear of those in he future!