waterpump, waiting game Options

[soven]

I bought my car at 91000kms , did a cambelt change then and other normal tuneups but the waterpump was left out.Mechanic told me at the time that it didnt need to be changed since it was fine and I went along since I didn't know much about cars.

Is it just a matter of time before the waterpump would fail or are they supposed to last. What are the implications of it failing? Overheating?

From what I gather, if I was to get someone to change just the waterpump now, it would cost quite a bit?How many hours of labour would it be.

[Hanyo]

water pumps are tough and don't wear out often. Its a rule of thumb to change the water pump and timing belt together to save on the cost of labor.

The cost to changing a water pump would be around the same labor cost of changing the timing belt plus the cost of the water pump itself.

When a water pump fails it would rattle and make alot of nasty noise before it would fail and over heat your engine.

There is no say how long a water pump will last, I've seen a car have the factory water pump for 150,000 miles before the owner decided to do a tune-up.