I installed a generic ($80-ish) water pump in the disco last summer and 10K miles later, a squeaky pulley noise and gurgling heater core ensued - sure enough, the water pump bearings went bad as evidenced by a small glob of dried coolant beneath the weep hole. Should've sprung for the Airtex (about $150) the first time around and increased my chances of avoiding this. Anyway, pulled the old water pump and yesterday installed the new Airtex. Thought it might be helpful to show some of the differences between the two. Overall theme seems to be a much better casting designed to flow water more efficiently. The bearings are probably better and the impeller mount looks different enough to support that assumption.

You can see on the generic pump that there's a hard lip where the flow is supposed to transition nicely into the coolant galleries. And anytime there's a wedge shape in the casting, the generic one is more blunt, whereas the Airtex transition comes to a sharp point, again, better for fluid flow.

 

They look very similar. They just usually fail at the seal where impelar is It’s a hit and miss with these parts

 

Where’d you source your generic pump? Asking from someone who installed a Lucky8 water pump 6 months ago.

 

Atlantic British. It was their not-Airtex option. I talked to the guy there, Dave, and asked, if these things fail so often, why do you guys even sell them? The answer you'd expect, which was simply that they need something at that price range even though they're garbage.

 

I got my airtex water pump from Rockauto for around $65. I believe it was made in Spain and seemed well built. Time will tell I guess.