Quick questions with detailed post to follow:
EDIT: Car is 2000 2.7T 6-speed
Anyone have the case of the electric waterpump fail (crack) spontaneously causing coolant to spew out and down the back of the engine during cool down mode with car off?

Are there any hoses connected for the inlet or outlet that, if pulled on, could crack the case, either when detailing the engine bay or doing timing belt service to the front of the engine?

Finally, what is an average cost to R&R this part?

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Now, here is the long story:
My wife's 2.7T, 95K miles, had a timing belt service and detailing which included engine bay detailing, done the first week of August (shop sends car out for detailing to a 3rd party).
October 10th she got a low coolant light and went back to the shop. They said there might have been an air bubble in the system, but they didn't see a leak so they topped off the reservoir.
This week the sensor came on again, and I noticed that when I drove it, after it was sitting you could smell coolant when you came back to the car. We set up an appointment for Friday. But, I noticed thursday that when sitting after warm shutdown, coolant would drip down about under the firewall area. However, with car running, no coolant leak. Wierd stuff. I didn't realize the A6 uses a secondary pump at the time. If they would have used a turbo timer I wouldn't be writing this.

Anyway, originally the shop said they would fix the coolant leak as part of the timing belt/waterpump repair from August, especially since they had a history of the leak.

Well, I was a little surprised when they told me we would have to pay for the "cracked case" of the electric water pump. Especially when the tech on the phone said that they had never seen this type of failure before. (The shop is a 15 yr plus Audi/VW specialist shop here in SE Michigan).

This got me thinking about the "failure". I've asked to see the failed part and will see it Monday. At this point I do not know if the housing is plastic or metal and where the crack occured.

However, I do know that we have a slow leak that drained the coolant resevoir in about 50 days after a timing belt/engine detail and that after filling, the leak drained the same tank in <30 days, with the last two days being near catostraphic failure. To me, this indicates a physical damage that with continued hot/cold cycling and pressure when pumping, fatigued to failure. And that failure follows an exponential curve of leak rate vs time.

If the housing is plastic and the leak occured at the base of a connection, I would say that some outside force on the connection fatigued/cracked the housing and continued cycling propogated the failure to its current state.

I've just never seen this part and anyone who has any experience with the electric water pump please add any information you can.

(Yes, my intent is to show that someone vs something cracked the housing during either detailing or timing belt change to avoid paying $700 to replace a part that a long time audi shop has never seen fail in this manner before mine. Incidentally, I really doubt the shop had anything to do with it, I'm guessing that it probably occured during the detailing. However, I need to understand the orientation of the part and any hoses/fittings that may be connected.)

The main purpose of this post is to see if there is some history of this part failing. If there is, then I can set my mind at ease a little.

Thanks,

PJ Gross

 

Nevermind!

I did more searching under "auxiliary water pump" and found the 2.7T '01 tech article and the BaysideS4 write-up on the AudiWorld site.

As far as I can see, a total coincidence and if not common, a not unprobable occurance.

The writeups had pics and I saw what I needed to reassure myself of no funny business.

I guess it pays to do research before getting worked up.

I'm replying instead of deleting in case someone else tries to search by "electric water pump" instead of "auxiliary".

-PJ