piratepress Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 As a new 2010 Sport owner, I tried to exercise my due diligence in picking a car with no prominent issues. I thought I was doing well by getting the 3.5 V6, but after my purchase, I'm worried regarding the posts about the water pump failures and it ruining the engine. I'm curious if this is a widespread issue or if its pretty rare (i.e. should I be concerned)? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fusionmanor Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 It's not if but when..........the timing chain wears,stretches and starts beating on the water pump. the newer 2013+ 3.5s use a different double roller style setup. For the 10-12 Sport it's all prior maintenance and now 10+ year old water pump seals. Either way Good Luck! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drolds1 Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 They do fail. I wouldn't say it's a widespread problem. Fortunately, most of the failures occur at very high mileage. Here's one with 260+K miles. This one was far gone enough to allow coolant into the oil pan, causing some engine damage. You have to keep a close eye on the WP weep hole. The pimp has a double gasket. If the pump starts to leak past the first gasket, there's a channel machined into the block and pump to direct coolant to the weep hole where, hopefully, you'll see it. If it's ignored and the seal on the pump shaft goes, coolant leaks into the oil pan and damage ensues. Anti-freeze is not a good lubricant. See this video to learn the warning signs. IIRC, your car has very low mileage. I wouldn't stay up at night worrying about it. Be proactive; watch the coolant level closely and periodically inspect the weep hole under the alternator, as Ford Tech Makuloco advises. Of course, this won't spare you the expense of repairing it if it fails but at least it won't take the whole engine with it if it does. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ponyguy Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 7 hours ago, fusionmanor said: It's not if but when..........the timing chain wears,stretches and starts beating on the water pump. the newer 2013+ 3.5s use a different double roller style setup. For the 10-12 Sport it's all prior maintenance and now 10+ year old water pump seals. Either way Good Luck! If I'm not mistaken, the 2013 and later Fusions don't use the 3.5 engine, do they? I thought the 2013+ Fusions all used a 4 cylinder engine of various displacements until the 2017 Sport arrived with the 2.7 EcoBoost V-six. Please correct me if I'm mistaken... Having said that, the 3.5 & 3.7 does, indeed, possess a water pump that's difficult to $ervice... (Ask a Taurus owner...) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fusionmanor Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 Ponyguy, you're correct. The statement 13+ was for the newer generation FWD 3.5s as a whole like the Taurus, Flex, Edge, etc. that can be replaced "in car" But I'll keep both my Fusion 2.5s for now......... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waldo Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 16 hours ago, fusionmanor said: It's not if but when..........the timing chain wears,stretches and starts beating on the water pump. the newer 2013+ 3.5s use a different double roller style setup. For the 10-12 Sport it's all prior maintenance and now 10+ year old water pump seals. Either way Good Luck! Well everything will fail eventually. The water pump failure rate on the 3.5 isn't any higher than the failure rate on any other engine, Ford or otherwise. It's just that when it fails it can cause serious damage to the engine and replacing it is a very expensive job. That's why you hear so much about it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piratepress Posted October 27, 2020 Author Share Posted October 27, 2020 Thanks for the input, everyone. I just paid for a coolant flush yesterday as the original coolant was filthy. As of today, the coolant level is right on the line, so it will be easy to monitor and see if it drops. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lukifer Posted October 29, 2020 Share Posted October 29, 2020 (edited) I found myself in your position after I bought my 2011... I started reading about the water pump issue and it freaked me out... I did some research on extended warranties and then drove to a local ford dealer and bought an extended service plan (https://fordprotect.ford.com/). It covers my engine and transmission for 5 years or 60,000 miles... whichever comes first. If the pump doesnt fail by then, I'll probably just sell the car when the warranty is up. A friend of mine had a 2010 Lincoln MKZ and, just a few months ago, his water pump failed on him and it killed his engine. The car had about 140,000 miles on it. Edited October 29, 2020 by Lukifer 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piratepress Posted November 2, 2020 Author Share Posted November 2, 2020 I tried to get an online quote for mine, but it said the information wasn't available at the present time. Fortunately, mine only has 34,000 miles on it so maybe I'll be okay for a while. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lukifer Posted November 5, 2020 Share Posted November 5, 2020 Oh damn, that's real low miles. You'll be fine for a long time. Mine has almost 90k on it now. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casimm Posted September 6, 2022 Share Posted September 6, 2022 Hi, I bought my 2012 Ford Fusion Sport December 2020. I have had no issues up until recently... I noticed a few weeks ago that my car was leaking something, I don't know ANYTHING about cars so I brought it to a mechanic down the street from my work and they said it was transmission oil. They replaced the transmission lines and did an oil change even though I had an oil change done at a different place a month prior to that. Last Thursday I got out of my car to go back into work after my lunch break and noticed there was a gigantic puddle of something that was leaking form the front of my car! The color looked very similar to when the transmission oil was leaking (almost a very very light brown/orange) so I brought it back to the same shop thinking it was transmission oil again. Turns out the water pump is leaking antifreeze. They said I have to replace the water pump but because the water pump is internal (again, I don't know anything about cars just repeating what I was told) and because of that I need to replace the motor and quoted me for about 20 hrs of work at $4,000!!! I know that because of inflation the cost of EVERYTHING is up and parts are hard to get, but I feel like that's a lot of money! It could just be the shop that I went to charges more for labor than other places but I'm wondering if anyone else has had to replace the water pump and if it cost that much? Also, if anyone knows what he meant by the water pump is "internal" please let me know!!! I was sort of rushed off the phone before I could ask what that meant! The car has a 3.5L engine! Any information would be EXTREMELY helpful!!!!!!! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drolds1 Posted September 7, 2022 Share Posted September 7, 2022 Traditionally, water pumps were externally mounted on the front of the engine and belt-driven along with other engine-mounted accessories such as, alternator, a/c compressor, power steering pump, emissions pumps and (non-electric) radiator fan. The 3.5/3.7 Ford engines, however, have the coolant pump mounted internally and driven by a (timing)chain. The problem is when the pump fails, it leaks coolant. With an external pump, coolant just leaks onto the ground. With the internal pump, coolant may leak into the engine oil, diluting it. The Ford internal pump is supposed to have provisions for a leak to drip onto the ground also, but that doesn't always happen. Since antifreeze is a poor lubricant, once enough gets into the oil, the latter is diluted to the point that it can no longer do its job and engine failure may result. It's not always the case, as this video will illustrate. Now, in your case, the fact that you saw any antifreeze on the ground at all could be a good sign. It's possible that antifreeze didn't get into your engine's oil. That's fairly easy to determine. When antifreeze mixes with oil, the result is a liquid that resembles a chocolate milkshake. See here. Has the shop told you this? Let them show you if that's the case. It's not a forgone conclusion in these cases. How did they come to the conclusion that you need a new engine? If you do need a new engine, where is it being sourced; junkyard, remanufactured? Will it have any kind of warranty? These are questions you need to be asking. When they replaced the transmission cooling lines, they should have noticed if coolant was leaking from the water pump. BTW, how many miles are on your Fusion? Even if all you need is a water pump, it's still a huge job on this car. Partial disassembly of the engine is required. The manual allows for 11½ hours of labor for a paying (non-warranty) customer. If the engine needs to be replaced, it's more hours of labor plus the cost of the replacement engine. Depending on the provenance of the replacement engine, $4G doesn't sound bad to me. But again, you need to get all the details. Get back to us when you know more. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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