I beg to differ that any reputable brand will do with water pumps..Go OE or go home....Time and time again I have used them at the will of the customer Oreilly..Advanced.....AutoZone
.none of that reman crap either.Each time id say about or alittle over a year they started to leak again. Some pumps are easy to do but others are a PIA....So id get an OE pump and call it a day. I had gone through 3 aftermarket new pumps on my SSEI Bonneville and after the third I got a GM water pump and that thing went until I sold the vehicle and is still kicking around with my buddy now. Food for thought.
.none of that reman crap either.Each time id say about or alittle over a year they started to leak again. Some pumps are easy to do but others are a PIA....So id get an OE pump and call it a day. I had gone through 3 aftermarket new pumps on my SSEI Bonneville and after the third I got a GM water pump and that thing went until I sold the vehicle and is still kicking around with my buddy now. Food for thought.
Different model/year vehicle, the OEM water pump went approximately 110k. It had an interesting design in that, the propeller would slap a loose back plate, making a loud clack, clack, clack sound to indicate bearing wear; a built-in warning system. It never leaked. So I slapped an AutoZrap part on. I got rid of that in less than 10k and installed a CarQuest part, which was still going strong when sold it at over 327k. That's 3 times longer than OEM and well, nearly 33 times longer than AutoCrap. Spark plug wires? Worse mistake to replace those. I eventually went back to Motorcraft. Ball joints? Similar story. Tie-rod ends? Similar story. Window crank motors? Similar story. (and yes the original regulators and tracks were fine) Part after part it wasn't at all uncommon that the aftermarket, would last a fraction of the time that the OEM did.
The "new" "Motorcraft" alternator that I paid a pretty penny for from an independent Napa dealer burnt itself to a crisp in less than a year. It was under warranty. Went to take it back and it turns out it wasn't new but rebuilt and despite the "Motorcraft" stamping on the casing, wasn't actually Motorcraft. It was completely rebuilt by Raybestos but they reused the Motorcraft stamped casing. The computer listing, the documentation, the price, the receipt gave no indication that isn't wasn't "Motorcraft" when I bought it. This Napa dealer didn't stock Raybestos parts anymore (probably for quality concerns) and would have to wait two weeks for them to ship the crap back for exchange. I wanted a refund. Nope, you gotta wait.
So instead, I left with the old part and "shipped" myself on over to the nearest CarQuest and paid another pretty penny for a quality rebuilt one. Compared the Napa-Raybestos to the CarQuest and oh my, the differences were immediately obvious. The CarQuest was much heavier with a much beefier core yet, they were both supposedly the same output. Week or two later I went back to the Napa, let him know I couldn't wait and got a different part. Store manager reconsidered and issued a full refund on the spot without further hassle.
Anyway, if you buy aftermarket, at the very least, compare your original to the replacement part and pay fine, fine attention to fine, fine detail. My own experience suggests that just because it's "Motorcraft" doesn't mean that it wasn't a "Originally Motorcraft but completely rebuilt by crappy third party" part.
Note, OEM rubber parts may be the exception, in terms of a preference for purchase. Any OEM fuel filler neck hose I bought, would show dry-rot in a matter of months; leak much less than 18 months.