C230 Sport Coup

Christ, is nothing sacred?
Bought a Meyle water pump,
German lettering all over the box, and on the bottom
is says "Made in PR China. "

Arrgh. Is it possible to get an actual German made one?
Yeah, I can order one for Mercedes, MSRP of like 450, 375 I think on parts.com and $560 with tax at the local dealer. And even then, IO wonder where it will be made?
Will I be OK with a Chinese one?

Truth be told I paid $65 on ebay.

I don't actually need a water pump, but I'm accumulating everything I'll need
for my head gasket replacement, and I wanted to start with a fresh water pump since I have 195K miles on the original amazingly.

Last thing I need is some new head bolts and the star wrenches and I'll be ready to go.

c-coupe steve

I, personally, wouldn't be putting an after market chinese made water pump in my Mercedes.
If you were planning on getting rid of your car and the original had failed, then maybe I could see it making sense.

Moviela

I have visited factories in China and they are mostly struggling to make quality goods. The problems are lack of consistent supply of raw materials and poor quality inspections. Add to that customers beating them to death on price. There is a huge amount of counterfeiting not only in luxury fashion items, but light bulbs, integrated circuits, and car parts. The counterfeits are crap quality and mimic original trademarks and even packaging. Cellphone battries an example.

Take a Mercedes, Audi, or BMW part number for any service item from alternators to filters and drop them into a search engine or Alibaba and you will find many Chinese companies ready to deliver production quantities of those items for prices that seem too good to be true. Most of the time they are a waste of money, but not always.

Mercedes manufactures a good deal of product in China. They have an executive that reports directly to the board of management on Greater China. North America does not have that. Dr. Z regards China as the largest market for Daimler products. I have personally seen AMG parts made in China that use traditional German protocols and are of the same quality as parts made in der Vaterland. For Mercedes to expand in the Asian markets they will need to manufacture and source parts in the reigon. European manufacturing costs are not consistent with the amount of money people earn in most of Asia.

I would not turn up my nose at Chinese sourced parts, some can be excellent, but the counterfeit situation makes it very hard for a consumer to obtain genuine parts from non-traditional sources like eBay.

If the unit is truly a Meyle pump, you will be fine. Meyle has a California office. You can call Bobby Castro at (925) 699-7199 and ask if Meyle is making parts in China, and how to spot a counterfeit.

Glyn M Ruck

+1^

Watch counterfeiting.

You get what you pay for from good Chinese manufacturers. Pay them enough & their quality is superlative. Chisel the price & you get crap.

Jack_2001C240

Great post. Thanks. I had a Made in China upper radiator hose installed on my 1990 Toyota Celica that lasted less than 2 years. The original one made in Japan lasted 17 years and was still good, but I decided to replace it because of it's age. I have found that computer equipment, air conditioners, electric heaters and some small appliances made in China do give you good value for your money. Get use to stuff made in China or Asia. Asia has a rising middle class. America's middle class is in decline and maybe rightfuly so with the immature and arrogant attitude so many of them have.

mleskovar

That price is too good to be true...and you know what they say about that. I'm always amazed at how many assemblies from China have been reworked. And poorly/sloppy at that. Anything that has a cover over internal parts - electric or mechanical - should be suspect. They take on many short run items and with nothing going to waste and labor expendable it's to be expected. High volume like electronics seem to be OK but even then reworked parts are obvious once brought to light. 195K miles on a water pump! I replaced my last one at 150K miles just because.....and didn't realize I had become use to a noise from the old one! I'd take Moviela's advice and check with Meyle.

C230 Sport Coup

Well the inevitable finally happened at 217K exactly, my water pump is leaking all over the place from the front.
Hasn't overheated, and guess I'll have to tow it home and drive my other car till I get the part. But I'm back to the same question, what brand is best? They're all about 60-80 bucks. Autohauz AZ has the Graf for about $75 and oddly enough the Mayle is 10 bucks more. I sent the one I had back. Then there's Saleri also....
Which one should I get?

samaritrey

For my C320 i put in a Graf and i believe it was German.

Mark Seibold

April 25th 2024 -
My 2001 E320, 2.3 liter V6 gasoline engine with 368,000 miles, as my personal Mercedes mechanic replaced my water pump today ,1st time, as it appears that the original manufactured pump with the German labeling from Stuttgart Germany, just gave out with the bearing rattling, and some mild seepage of water leaking. [This year model of the Mercedes E320 is known to go longer than any of their models and year in history. I saw the original write-up review, on the car after I purchased it 10 years old in 2011, with only 102,000 miles on the odometer, and it was still virtually like new then. I can't remember now if it was Car & Driver or Road & Track that I accidentally found a review on the vehicle. The review writer wrote:
"Mercedes tells us that this new 2001 E320 has a V6, but to us it feels like a V8. The company has done their research and listened to their customers minor complaints over the years and taking care of any little minor complaints and bugs that the E320 vehicles had. Everything with this automobile including performance, handling, breaking interior creature comforts, and ergonomics, is the definitive benchmark of automotive engineering; we can find nothing to complain about this car, it will have all other automatic engineers following what Mercedes has set forth for years as the finest quality and Engineering known."
So for the original equipment water pump to go 368,000 miles may, this be a new record I've set with my 2001 E320 model. I may be the third owner, but I also believe that this is the first mechanical component ever replaced on the actual engine housing since the car was new.

My mechanic today chose the Graf model Made in Taiwan from a local highly respected import Auto parts shop for many years here in Portland Oregon, for a price of $106, and his 2 1/2 hours labor totaled $300, for a total of $406 parts and labor.
[The young mechanic was very meticulous in his work and of the two gaskets offered in the Graf Box, he selected the exact matching gasket that came off the engine block, with the new bead or like o-ring rubber structure that fits into the etched-out surface against the engine block casing. I requested from the owner of the shop that I wanted the closest to original equipment, yet as a retiree on a living on a budget, I could not afford the original Mercedes-built quality which I see somebody lists above in comments as $500+ if you can even find one of these today or rebuild the old one. I kept the old core just from my own keepsake, in case I could have it rebuilt one day. I'm sure the bearings made in Taiwan are just fine, but my concern would be the vane turbine blades being a compromised composition material, which I assume could be some sort of cheap pot metal, rather than the known stronger cast metal that the Germans originally used.]