Lifespan of water pump

mattyj wrote:
Anybody Have Experience with an old pump dying on them? I’m thinking of changing to a new pump in my driveway and just keep the old one as a spare , The old one is 18 years old .I’m also considering replacing the Original Convertor and keeping the old one as a spare . Does anybody else do this?

Sure, old pumps can and will fail, but so can new pumps (though obviously less often), and you can't really predict when it's going to happen.

Unless it's exceptionally hard to get to on the road, I'd just keep the new pump in the RV trunk as a spare and and plan to replace the old one if it breaks. But mine's easy to get to, just take out 2 underbed drawers and I can reach right in and replace it.

Though mine does double duty, since my RV doesn't have a gravity fill (it takes water pressure to fill the freshwater tank), I use the pump if I need to fill the freshwater tanks from a water jug (or to pump in antifreeze for winterizing)

I wouldn't bother keeping the old one (pump or converter) as a spare, do you really want to go through all the trouble to swap it out with an 18 year old replacement?

rlw999 wrote:

mattyj wrote:
Anybody Have Experience with an old pump dying on them? I’m thinking of changing to a new pump in my driveway and just keep the old one as a spare , The old one is 18 years old .I’m also considering replacing the Original Convertor and keeping the old one as a spare . Does anybody else do this?

Sure, old pumps can and will fail, but so can new pumps (though obviously less often), and you can't really predict when it's going to happen.

Unless it's exceptionally hard to get to on the road, I'd just keep the new pump in the RV trunk as a spare and and plan to replace the old one if it breaks. But mine's easy to get to, just take out 2 underbed drawers and I can reach right in and replace it.

Though mine does double duty, since my RV doesn't have a gravity fill (it takes water pressure to fill the freshwater tank), I use the pump if I need to fill the freshwater tanks from a water jug (or to pump in antifreeze for winterizing)

I wouldn't bother keeping the old one (pump or converter) as a spare, do you really want to go through all the trouble to swap it out with an 18 year old replacement?

. I suppose that’s a waste of time to reuse an 18-year-old pump but I go out on the beach and I don’t wanna be stuck without any water .

The reason I posted this topic is because my camper is going to be 20 soon and I am starting to replace parts that could possibly give me a problem and are not too expensive, I was just wondering if anyone felt the same way and did the same thing.

I think I'll order one now...for my 20 year old 5th wheel.

Yes, Mattyj I think it's a sound philosophy. Maintenance, knowledge and spare parts is the key to a good trip. If it's cheap I just order two of everything. Toilet seals, caulk, water pumps, sail switches, sink faucet bushings cheap stuff like that. I also carry a spare alternator and starter in my truck as well as hoses and belts.

My Northstar Igloo is approaching 20 years old so this thread got me thinking of the replacements I have needed. The RV was 5 years old when I bought it.

I replaced the old batteries and after 7 years my AGM batteries started to show significant loss of capacity so I replaced them. I probably should have just done an equalization since I never did that during those 7 years.

Water pump started to slowly leak at year 10. I replaced rather than do a rebuild.

Solar controller died suddenly, year 7. I upgraded to a better unit, year 12.

Converter died last week, year 17.

I have lost track of the dates, but I had to replace 2 Happijack motors and one complete jack. I never did any maintenance on the jack. The motors died from water intrusion and I have since sealed or at least tried to seal all of the motors. The old motors were poorly designed without suitable seals.

Several window props have broken. The parts costs are beyond belief so I use office binder clips to hold the windows open the amount desired.

About year 8 I had to replace a couple of plastic drawer slides.

Back door latch broke, year 14.

I am not going to carry a bunch of spare parts because I think anything could go at any time.

I carry spare water pump and converter among other parts, I will change them out when these items fail, my philosophy is if it ain't broke no need to replace.

I carry a extra water pump and now a jackey power station that I got for x-mas.

mine has worked so well for so long, 19 years, I am afraid to go new. Even left it on two times for 7/8 hours running dry the whole time. trouble is I made it run quiet as possible so sometimes I don't hear it when left on and the water runs out.

I better do like everyone else tho and carry a spare.

mattyj wrote:
I suppose that’s a waste of time to reuse an 18-year-old pump but I go out on the beach and I don’t wanna be stuck without any water .

This is one of the reasons why I put a 35 gallon water tank on my roof, that and it comes in handy to wash the sand off everything.