I just had my water pump fully replaced for a new Ford pump on my '98 SVT Contour EO today at Conshohocken Ford (suburb of Philadelphia) for $267, including a coolant flush. Pretty reasonable cost compared to the horriffic overcharging posted by dozens of folks on the site. Keeping the old pump to see how it's built and as an emergency backup...
One caveat-- my car just passed 50k miles and I had this done before a failure actually occurred. My gut feel is that folks are being taken advantage of when their cars are rendered inoperable by an actual failure.
As an aside, this website is a fantastic resource-- never would I have even been able to consider replacing the water pump as a preventive maintenance item if I didn't read 200+ posts from fellow owners describing WP failures b/w 40,000-100,000 miles. It sucks that the pump is a piece of ****, but armed with the information in these forums, I've hopefully short-circuited getting stranded on the side of the road with a failed pump and a blown engine.
The information on oil starvation on long right turns at high RPM's is also priceless. Again, it sucks that this is the case, but it's damn valuable to know about ahead of time!
It really shows the true power of distributed communication. Before the internet, Usenet, and the web, this kind of information exchange just wasn't possible. It's awesome when you think about life as a car owner only 6-8 years ago and not having this kind of a forum to communicate w/ so many fellow owners all around the country and even the world.
-Jeff
