Hello, need to replace the water pump on my 2000 sts, I see several different prices for the water pump socket by three different companies. One is by astro pnuematic, 12 to 40 dollars, lisle 15 to 20 dollars and schulley from 78 to 120 dollars. The designs looks the same for all three. Any advice on experince with any socket would be appreciated.

The cheap ones are stamped steel. I have heard some say they worked ok and others say that they slipped. The expensive one are machined and much beefier. I made my own but have not had the need to use it yet.

screw driver and a hammer.. dirt cheap.. worked like a charm. no damage done.

I bought one of the cheap ones and it seemed to work fine. Probably if you were a Northstar mechanic and replaced them all the time, an expensive one would make sense. Average owner will probably need it only once or twice for as long as they own the car. Hope this helps!!

I bought a Lisle from NAPA and it did the job!

screw driver and a hammer.. dirt cheap.. worked like a charm. no damage done.

I would NOT recommend that! If you break one of the aluminum locking lugs on the housing, the whole waterpump crossover housing has to be replaced! Sure you could save $20 by not buying the correct socket, but is that worth the risk of breaking a several hundred dollar coolant crossover?

Hello and thanks for all the advice, I used the asrto pneumatic socket and it worked fine. Word of caution, make sure that the water pump and socket is centered before trying to lock into place, when tabs are aligned correctly and pump is centered very little force was needed on second attempt to install, good thing that no damage was down to housing. But tool made things a snap for twenty bucks. Car is back on the road now. Does any know why the tabs are harder to find now. I went to four auto parts store before locating the gold , seems to be plenty of silver on the shelf.