<p>Depending on the design, the water pump needs to be removed/installed anyway when the timing belt is replaced and there’s little point in reinstalling an old water pump, especially if it has 106K miles on it since it’s an item that does eventually fail. A water pump has seals and bearings and it’s usually one of these that’ll fail. Sometimes it’ll fail just due to corrosion of the metal parts. The labor to replace the pump should be negligible though since they have to reinstall the pump, whether the old one or the new one, anyway when they replace the belt. If the part cost for the WP is unusually high then it might make sense to use the old one until it fails but there are usually aftermarket ones available for a reasonable cost (although parts for Japanese cars are usually more than for my Dodge).</p>
<p>I’d ask the initial dealer how much of that extra $300 is the cost of the pump as opposed to labor and if there’s much at all in the labor ask them why since it’s your understanding that there’s essentially no incremental labor time to install the new pump.</p>
<p>I’d avoid the second dealer because it makes no sense to not replace the WP (usually) when doing the timing belt.</p>
<p>I agree with checking the cost with a good quality independent car repair place since dealers sometimes (usually) charge more than an independent dealer. They also can have less expensive parts costs since they might use quality aftermarket parts and often don’t mark up the parts costs as much as the dealer does.</p>
<p>BCEagle:
180K is a lot of miles to get out of a water pump so I think you’ve done well. I’ve changed the WP 3 times so far (with actual failures each time but they were gentle leaks rather than catastrophic failures) in my Durango with 163K miles on it although it’s a bigger engine with more force on the pulley. I did all the work myself so the cost wasn’t high but it was still a pain to have to do.</p>