Change water pump without draining coolant from bottom?

I know the implication, that the Toyota logo was ground off for a “reason”, but that reason could be simply to avoid the price increase that branding imposes.

 

That's what I would like to think. But with the horror stories I hear about the replacement pumps breaking down after a short while I may install the little dash temperature indicator and monitor that. And replace the pump only after there are actual cooling issues...

 

It hasn't been my experience that branding generally imposes a price increase. I often find it harder to find, say, unbranded apparel as cheaply as items with prominent brand logos. Which kind of makes sense, as the logo owner is in a sense getting advertising value from me as I walk around wearing it.

I would think the notion of trademark infringement and goodwill comes nearer the reason for grinding a Toyota logo off a product that isn't going to be sold through Toyota's channels. The logo there is serving more of a trademarking purpose, supposedly giving the customer assurance of certain things about the provenance and quality of the item, and Toyota lawyers would probably claim customers were misled if the pumps slated for other sales channels came with Toyota marks on them.

 

So what should I do then? I have an appointment set for this week to do both the water pump and the transaxle drain and refill. I don't want to screw up trying to "fix" something that's not broken.

ChapmanF: which OBDII dash gadget do you recommend to monitor the engine coolant temperature? Simpler is better. Thanks!

 

The ground off logo stuff is a lot more common with euro car parts. FCP euro parts has several examples on their website.

 

I have a ScanGauge II that I've been nothing short of completely satisfied with for what I use it for. I had to manually program in some Prius-specific PIDs, using a spreadsheet that's around here on PriusChat somewhere.

That's their old thing. They have a ScanGauge III now.