recently acquired 1999 323ic (E36)
i'm trying to determine if this car came from the factory with a plastic impeller or metal. most resources seem to indicate plastic (or possibly resin) but one source i can't find again said starting in 1997 they came with metal impellers from the factory. anyone got some solid info on this?
thanks
edit: found it again
"The water pump issue is due to the fact that BMW originally used water pumps with a plastic impeller on the e36 6 cylinder engines. After a while the plastic would get brittle and eventually the impeller would disintegrate. BMW eventually identified the problem and started using updated pumps with aluminum impellers in 1997, so any car built after '97 or any car that has had the water pump replaced after '97 should be ok. If in doubt, the pump isn't very expensive so it's no big deal to go ahead and replace it if you can do the work yourself. Although if you have a shop do it for you, it will cost you a bit in labor."
So if the above is true my 99 "should" have a metal impeller. If so can I expect any future failures to be "normal" type water pump failures, i.e. seals beginning to drip/leak vs. catastrophic failure of a plastic impeller?