fuel pump heads-up!

Counting the original, my '99 Winny now has its fifth fuel pump. I probably should note that one replacement pump failed pretty much straight out of the box ... so it may be better to say that my Winny has used three fuel pumps to get me 350k miles .... or roughly 115k miles per fuel pump.

My first replacements were all full sender-pump units made by Airtex from AutoZone. I could have just replaced the fuel pump motor unit with new screen ... but I find it easier to replace the entire unit.

This time, this fifth pump, I discovered that Bosch also made a replacement pump. Always respecting this brand, I decided to give Bosch from Advanced Auto a try this time around. I dropped the tank and removed the failed unit before even opening the box and getting my surprise: The Bosch replacement unit did not include a pressure sensor! So, they intended for me to move the sensor from the failed unit to the new Bosch unit. Not a big deal to remove the sensor from the pump unit ... if it was still installed in the tank. But this becomes a very tedious task once the pump sender unit has been removed from tank.

Tip: Be sure to inspect new pump sender unit before removing the old unit from tank! Then you won't have to wrestle the thing across the floor as I did.

Thanks for the info!

Out of curiosity: Any idea why you've seen so many fuel pump problems? At 150K+ on my '00, I've never touched the fuel pump.

My '96 with over 229K miles on it still had its original fuel pump.

No, I don't know why pumps are not lasting so long for me ... unless its the crap I've loaded into my tank on trips around the country, always looking for the cheap gas. On the other hand, one poster on another string mentioned, " Anyone getting 60k miles, or more, on a Ford fuel pump is just lucky". So who knows?

....BTW, on the longevity of the pumps: In each case, I could have probably gotten away with just swabbing out the tank, and replacing the inlet screen on the pump. The elect motor and pump were perhaps still serviceable ... the inlet screens were always loaded with crud.

But there is so much effort in emptying, lowering and raising the tank ... that I just did not want to take chances on the motor and pump being worn or damaged.

My experience with Ford in-tank pumps for fuel-injected cars:

- '00 Ford Windstar LX 3.8: Original pump at 150-ishK miles; no problems.
- '95 Ford Contour GL V6 2.5: Original pump at 100K miles; no problems.
- '86 Ford Mustang GT 5.0: Original in-tank pump died at about 120K. I replaced it myself (a time consuming job, but not really difficult) and found the sock filter to be discolored, but *not* full of gunk. The inside of the tank (tanks were still metal in '86) was cleaner than I expected. I disassembled the pump; it appears that the motor brushes and armature wore to the point that it didn't make a good connection, and the pump simply quit. I replaced it with an Airtex unit, which was still working fine when I sold the car at 210K miles.