Should I use “Stop Leak” for a slow water pump leak?

Published October 19, 2010

Question by Sithis: Should I use “Stop Leak” for a slow water pump leak?
I have a 2000 Dodge Stratus and recently had the coolant drained (not “flushed”, as the mechanic wanted to charge $ 125 extra for that). Prior to that time I never had a single coolant leak, but since then, I’ve had the coolant leak out slowly over about a 2 week period of normal stop & go traffic. Now the mechanic is saying the water pump is leaking, and that’s going to be another $ 600+ more to fix (over 5 hrs of labor), which I really don’t have the money for right now.

So two questions.. 1) what could’ve happened to cause the water pump to suddenly start leaking only after the coolant was drained, when it was fine before that? and 2) should I try using a “Radiator Stop Leak” product? I know people say they can plug up the whole radiator, but if that were the case 100% of the time, you’d think these products would’ve been made illegal a long time ago.

SO realistically what are the chances of it doing more harm than good? I still plan on getting the water pump replaced, it’ll just have to be awhile.
I’ve contacted three repair shops and they all quoted the repair time as being 5.2 hours… everything about this car is a “hard install”, even the battery is hidden…
The water pump itself is relatively new, replaced about 3 years/33k miles ago, along with the timing belt.

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