[mcv135]

Just finished swapping out my thermostat and water pump. My pump died during my commute home this past week; the car had a little more than 72500 miles. I got two codes: 2E81 "Coolant pump speed deviation" and 2E82 "Coolant pump cutoff." It made the drive home (which involves a large hill) pretty interesting.

I used a VDO pump; the only visible difference between the OEM and the VDO pump is that the official BMW pump appears to have rubber vibration dampers for the three mounting screws.

The job was straightforward once I'd watched the excellent BavAuto videos, but did take a long time. I used Rhino Ramps and there's just not a whole lot of room to move around under the car with those. I'd like to use jackstands, but I don't know how well jackstands would work with the small plastic BMW jacking points -- wouldn't the plastic parts get crushed?

Several people wondered about the combination of snap-connect and traditional hose connections for the thermostat. My theory on that is that because there are two snap-connect and two "normal" worm-clamp hose connections, there's only one way to attach the thermostat. You can't attach the hose connections to the wrong place. So the variety of connectors and hose-sizes may be an attempt to prevent incorrect installation of the thermostat.

I don't have much to add here, but I wanted to get in and tell people how many miles my pump lasted, what my codes were, and to express appreciation for BavAuto's excellent videos.