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Gates timing belt kit Chinese water pump failure

Gates Timing Belt Kit and Water Pump

On July 12, 2015, I purchased a Gates TCKWP328 Engine Timing Belt Kit with Water Pump from Amazon Prime, for $194.32 I also purchased both Gates accessory drive belts, and upper & lower Gates radiator hoses from Amazon at the same time. I am a 62 year old retiree and part time mechanic. I have used Gates products my entire life and have always considered their products as best in class.

I installed these items on my 2004 Subaru Impreza with a Subaru Master Mechanic, on 9/12/15. The car had 80,800 miles on it at that time. The timing belt was under the recommended replacement mileage, but had reached the recommended time limit. The OEM parts were functioning perfectly. The OEM water pump we removed ooked great with no sign of coolant from the weep hole and the bearing was smooth.

Fast forward to about a month ago. Car starts leaking a very small amount of coolant from what appears to be the small rubber elbow that attaches the coolant hardline from the water pump to the oil cooler. Turns out that was not it. In fact coolant was coming from the front cover, actually from the weep hole of my new water pump. I was more than bummed. So, approximately 18 months after this installation and at 90,000 miles, with only 9,200 miles on the new Gates water pump, it’s bearing seal failed.

This installation was done per factory specs with correct tools, with all parts installed at recommended torque values using calibrated torque wrenches. A new OEM Subaru metal water pump gasket was installed with the Gates pump. A new OEM Subaru thermostat and gasket were used. Brand new, clean Pentofrost A3 long life coolant was used, pouring though a clean funnel. There was no coolant contamination or corrosion that caused the Gates pump premature failure.

So I buy a new OEM pump and do the entire job all over again a couple weeks ago. I read, too late of course, that people were having similar bad experiences with Gates water pumps recently, alleging that Gates had switched from a Japanese water pump to a cheap Chinese knock off. Sure enough, the OEM pump has “JAPAN” stamped in the casting, and the Gates part only has “2” stamped in that spot. We checked the other parts that we installed initially from the Gates kit, which appeared to be OEM Japanese. I’m not 100% sure about the tensioner, but it was not leaking after 9,200 miles.

So out of frustration more than anything else, I sent an email to Gates explaining essentially what was in the first couple of paragraphs of this post. I asked for a refund of the purchase price of the timing belt kit, as well as three hours labor at $80/hour. I thought this was a reasonable claim considering all the inconvenience I had been through. I also asked for reimbursement of 3 gallons of coolant. I requested a “customer accommodation” settlement, even though I was past their stated warranty time frame (I was within their mileage limit).

They told me they have a claim process for water pumps that are failing even after their 12 month warranty limitation. Then, they sent me an email telling me because I purchased the Gates kit from Amazon, who is not an approved Gates supplier, I needed to contact Amazon first to try to process a claim with them. If Amazon refused to credit me, I needed an email from Amazon saying that they denied my claim, as well as to send the defective pump back to Gates for their examination. I had already sent them detailed pictures of the obvious failure.

I thought it was ridiculous to have me go back to Amazon for a year and a half old order, but I went ahead and did that. I explained to the Amazon Rep about how Gates had allegedly switched to poor quality Chinese parts, and I was sorry to have to ask them for a letter denying my claim. I’ve been an Amazon Prime member since Amazon first came up with their Prime program. They have had outstanding service in the few instances I’ve had problems. This time, they literally blew my mind!

Not seconds into my conversation the Amazon rep profusely apologized for the problems I'd been through. All I got from Gates up to that point was different hoops to jump through to follow their policies. The Amazon rep put me on hold for maybe two minutes. Then apologized again, explaining it’s a little difficult for them to issue a credit for my $194.32 because the order was over a year and a half old. He said they would figure out a way to do it, and oh by the way I forgot to add the tax I paid on that order so they would refund me $208.56! Later that day I start getting multiple texts from Amazon prime showing that they are refunding me incrementally for every recent order my family had placed, until the total reached $220. Apparently, with an order that old they couldn’t credit me for the exact purchase price, so they just worked backwards in actual order value increments that they could refund me. So my total credit was a little higher than what I actual paid for the Gates kit. Amazing!

Then, I sent Gates the following email: “Amazon listened to a long standing customer, trusted my verbal review of what happened, including my explanation of your stated warranty and the additional costs I incurred due to the pump failure, and then immediately refunded my full purchase price on an order from July, 2015. That’s “legendary service”. So now I am out the labor this part failure caused.”

Gates responded, saying if I wanted to pursue my labor claim to fill out their on-line form, send my labor and other invoices and the defective pump to their claims office. What a PIA compared to Amazon, but at least they were giving me some avenue for potential compensation. So I have now done that, and my package with the pump and all the paperwork has arrived at Gates Claim Office.

My claim to Gates was $302.25 for labor & coolant basically. I’ll report back what Gates does on my open claim.

Morals of the story:

1. Do not buy a Gates timing belt kit with the water pump. If you get a good deal on their timing belt kit without the water pump, do it. Buy an OEM water pump. Use an OEM metal gasket too.

2. Buy as much as you can from Amazon Prime. Their customer service is absolutely exceptional! Rarely does anything go wrong. If it does, you speak to a live person who handles your problem immediately.

3. Even when a large corporation like Gates makes you jump through hoops to process a claim, don’t give up. When it’s hard to be polite because you are frustrated, try to be anyway. Maybe in the end, you’ll get some compensation for your troubles… we’ll see!