Water pump Gates or GMB

I put a gates on my 2005 in August. No issues so far.

Currently running a fvp, which is just a gmb, and it works great.

I got a metal impeller gates and I’ve been beating on it for five years or more without any hiccups.

I've been running the aluminum GMB pump (1301280AL on Rockauto) on the 455 in my '72 Bonneville for about 5 years now with no problems.

I went with a gates.

I only use gates kits on any HDI I work on. Out around 30 fitted to friends and family cars I had one water pump bearing fail after 4 months they changed it with no issues but as it was a home fit not garage no labour cost offered no other issues.

Did hear Gates did have a bad batch of 2.0 Blue HDI OEM water pumps with impellers coming loose

During COVID, that water pump was on backorder from Ford so I used one from Gates. I guess Gates had a bad batch and 2 of their's failed in the span of less than a year.

The only one to really avoid out of the 5 choices on Rockauto is the Gates, because of the cheap stamped impeller. Personally, I would not go with an aluminum pump body in this application, but that's just my opinion after working on vehicles for a living for 45+ years.

I used a Gates pump the first time and it leaked. I uninstalled it, cleaned everything up, regreased all the seals, and reinstalled it it... still leaked. Turns out the Gates water pumps for the ecodiesel are just garbage.

I have Gates start leaking within 10k of installation.