Would the aftermarket parts on FCP Euro or Atlantic British be ok? Everyone is out of stock on OEM water pumps. I'm not a fan of buying from amazon unless I know the seller (I believe AB sells on amazon?).
I sourced these parts from Atlantic British for my recent job. So far so good but as @timc90 indicates, even then you sometimes have issues. For the time being, it seems that the job has been successful...but we are still early into this.
I would say the parts that would give you the most grief on this job would be the water / coolant pump and the thermostat. There is a ton of junk out there and the coolant pump failing (or thermostat not opening) will cause some pretty serious issues. If you are in a tough spot, then that will make for a bad day. The hoses themselves are essentially just rubber hoses (and lots of them).
IMO, would NOT risk OEM on this, use JLR Branded parts. Just not worth the risk. I cooked an engine due to OEM part (fan clutch) failing. Also had OEM hoses fail prematurely on my L322, turns out the O Rings are different. Replaced the 1 year old o rings with 5 year old OE (JLR) to get me going and they were fine.
@timc930
Thanks and no argument there. Best quality is best.
But these things happen everywhere and I think one must be ready to respond to a problem.
Do I have an example? Why yes....
So on Christmas eve 2013 I drove home from dinner with my parents who were visiting me on the East Coast. Maybe a mile or two before getting home (fortunately), the water pump catastrophically failed, tossing the pulley against the radiator and throwing the serpentine belt off completely. I had coolant everywhere, sprayed all over the hood and engine bay.
The problem? According to the dealer, who did a full fix on that (it was still just a youngster and under warranty back then...and I had to wait until the day after Christmas for an emergency trip to the shop), the water pump from the factory had a flawed design: there was an issue with the bearing on the pulley shaft. The bearing failed, the whole pump seized, and the thing basically blew up.
Or at least that is what they told me.
So that was the original part, JLR, installed at the factory.
One never knows what will happen...these are machines. New parts simply cannot be trusted.