If you know what to expect, VW never disappoints. 
Photography by Tom Suddard
What’s next for our Volkswagen Mk7 Golf GTI? It’s time for some maintenance. Our car may only have 25,000 miles on it, but Volkswagen ownership is full of surprises.
This month’s surprise? A leaking water pump/thermostat, which was diagnosed by noticing coolant loss and asking the experts. Their advice was unanimous: the factory water pump is a poor design, and it’s not uncommon for them to leak, even on fairly new cars like ours.
The fix? Well, it’s to replace the pump with an identically flawed unit. Improved aftermarket pumps are available for earlier cars, but nobody makes one for our Mk7 yet.
But wait, there’s more: Volkswagen parts to do the job total $821.23 from FCP Euro. And it’s a miserable job that requires diving into the creamy nougat center of the engine bay. Fun stuff—let’s get started.
[Meet FCP Euro: Parts Superstore, Pro Race Team and More]
First, we needed to order parts. Rather than spend more than $800 on Volkswagen parts, we instead ordered $347.42 of original equipment parts from FCP Euro. What’s the difference? FCP has a full guide on their site, but OE parts are generally identical, just missing the Volkswagen logo.
Seems like a no-brainer to save $400, and they’re still covered by FCP Euro’s lifetime guarantee.
Parts in hand, it was time to pull the car into the garage and get to work. We’ll save you the monotony of a play-by-play recap (though FCP Euro posted an excellent one on their blog) and just write a simple summary: No single step of this job is difficult, but there are about 1000 steps.
The water pump lives under the intake manifold, so the intake must be removed in order to change it. We completed the water pump replacement in about a day's time in the garage, moving at a speed we’d call “lazy Saturday wrenching.”
With the water pump changed, our GTI stopped leaking coolant and returned to daily driver duty—hooray for Volkswagen ownership.
If you know what to expect, VW never disappoints.
VW with a thermostat housing leak... a staple since 1992.
It is sort of amazing how reliably unreliable VW is, isn't it? 30 years later and still building the same problems.
I have owned both a 1999 MK4 GTI with a VR6 and a 2010 MK6 GTI and they both needed water pumps replaced in the time that I had them. Can confirm that its is not a fun job.
You realize that water pump is under an extended warranty for 8yr/80k miles right?
It could have been done for free (or a significant discount) at the dealer.
You removed the CEL bulb? 
In reply to flatlander937 :
Yes, but I skipped the dealer for a few reasons:
1. I didn't have time to wait for the dealer--this happened the weekend before we left for the Tire Rack One Lap of America.
2. I didn't trust the dealer to fix the car without issues before that giant trip.
3. I didn't trust the dealer to actually do it for free--the car was only barely using coolant.
And, mostly...
4. I wanted to go through the process myself to get the story. Most of these cars are at/near the end of that warranty period, so this is going to become a very common DIY repair. Especially since the replacement part has the same flaws.
In reply to Tom Suddard :
"2. I didn't trust the dealer to fix the car without issues before that giant trip."
This is the reason that I do any repairs that I can possibly accomplish. Unless it needs a machine shop, it's mine.
Don't forget to change the crap thermostat too! Lots of trouble with crud build up in the top end of the turbo engines in the winter time because the engines don't warm up quickly enough to evap the condensation. VW dealers response, you use bad oil (ah, your shop does the service), you run oil to long (ah, check your shops service records, 3500 miles), too short trips (ah, I drive 10 miles one way to work, define "too short"), need to drive it more (more?). Put a NAPA stat in it and problem is gone. My friends 2007 GTI did this, just like my 2008 GTI. Talked to service tech's, really makes a mess in extreme cold, crud freezes, crankcase pressure can't vent and your guess is what gasket/seal is going to be breached.
Lastly the radio went on the Fritz (its is German after all), won't eject CD and FM tuner is off, won't hold the station selected. Dealer, "worked fine for us", I check before I leave, same E36 M3, go back to into dealer and give him my keys, better look at it this time, it still doesn't work, dealer "worked for us". All this crap while it was under warranty.
I'm guessing if it wasn't warranty these issues would have been fixed promptly, with a substantial bill.
I really loved driving that GTI but I dump it.
Tom Suddard said:It is sort of amazing how reliably unreliable VW is, isn't it? 30 years later and still building the same problems.
After owning them since 98 I should know better. My favorite is when they fix a problem (ring issues, timing components, transmission woes) and then have it again a generation or two later.
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