Well in my experience it's very unusual.  We've had our 87 for ~10 years
and have NEVER replaced the water pump (155,000 miles).    I did buy one
from Ron just for insurance, but it's still unused.   Not enough experience
with our 90 Westy yet (only ~30,000 of our miles on it) but it shows no
sign of needing one.

Sounds like maybe you have had the belt too tight (most likely), or perhaps
have a misalignment of pulleys (never seen that, but I guess it might be
possible.)

Dave
87 Wolfsburg
90 Westfalia

At 10:31 AM 6/26/98 -0700, Wolfsburg wrote:
>This morning my Vanagon is getting it's sixth water pump put in!!  Is it
>common for the Vanagon to have this much problems with the water pump.
>My Vanagon has 130,500 miles on it.  This is the approximate times I had
>to replace pumps:
>
>    1    6,000          covered under 2 year/24,0000 warranty
>    2    23,900        covered under 2 year/24,000 warranty
>    3    48,000        covered under emission warranty
>    4    74,000        paid for
>    5    96,000        paid for
>    6    130,500      paid for
>
>Can someone tell me what is going on?
>
>Thanks,
>Floyd Truskot
>
>1991 Vanagon Carat - red - 130,500
>1991 Vanagon Carat - white - 22,930
>1985 Vanagon GL - silver - 149,915
>