Bad water pump?

I'm not sure. It's just that there is so much grease.... With the belts idk. I'd say they kick the oil around. I did take it to mechanic yesterday and they said the water pump is just fine. Also the power steering pump is fine too... Maybe they were just being lazy. I do think the reservoir the power steering dropped some overnight though...

All the pics look normal, seepage is normal. RTV does not seal good forever, or missed spillage happening etc.
Oh and that picture of the engine shows the "water pump" cover. The water pump is inside, if the water pump decides to leak it will just fill the engine oil with coolant, yes there are some very brilliant engineers these days. But most all engines built now are considered disposable, from all manufactures, just pure bad designs. Some last and some don't.

Have you ever heard of a Nissan V6 water pump failing and leaking coolant into the engine oil?

Yes, it seems like a bad design decision, but it doesn't appear to be an issue. At least I have never heard a report in this forum of it occurring...

chidog said:

Oh and that picture of the engine shows the "water pump" cover. The water pump is inside, if the water pump decides to leak it will just fill the engine oil with coolant, yes there are some very brilliant engineers these days. But most all engines built now are considered disposable, from all manufactures, just pure bad designs. Some last and some don't.

Click to expand...

My point with the picture was to show the position of the water pump in relation to the PS pump as visual evidence that a bad water pump would have nothing to do with the oil leaking onto the PS pump. Not only does the water pump move different fluid, it's basically on the other side of the engine at about the same height. OP should be looking above the PS pump for the source of the oil leak.

Internal water pump is common with timing chain engines and are generally reliable. Of course, there are some engines that are notorious for having that problem due to bad design or manufacturing problem. Ford just got hit with a class action lawsuit for this problem in their Duratec V6s. This hasn't been a widespread issue for the VQ35DE though but still, it's a machine so anything can fail on any machine.

General comment - there are many engines where the water pump is inside a timing chain cover. In many cases replacement of that pump is recommended with any timing belt change. IIRC my Audi 5-cylinder also had an idler pulley inside the cover, so I replaced both when I did the timing belt. Just makes sense to replace all wear items when you have to do so much work to get at one item in there.

MuranoSL2003 said:

Have you ever heard of a Nissan V6 water pump failing and leaking coolant into the engine oil?

Yes, it seems like a bad design decision, but it doesn't appear to be an issue. At least I have never heard a report in this forum of it occurring...

Click to expand...

Yes some water/ coolant pumps will last for a long time. The issue is if and or when it happens some not so good things happen. Its just a bad design and thought process to do that.
The old system worked just great for years, and so nice to only spend a half hour or so to do the job and not have to deal with the worry of messing up the timing in the process.
This is one of the best and easiest water pumps there is to change. And it is a V6, the engineers were on top of the game on this area of this engine.

I do not recall hearing in this forum of a water pump needing to replaced, they seem well engineered and built to last the life of the engine. I'm sure some must fail, but if I am correct, it's very rare...

I was just showing an example of how to properly do the coolant pump. The occasional pump failure isn't likely going to show up on a site like this. Its a small fraction of car owners that use these sites.