Alright. I haven't had time to put cardboard under it because of the rain and school and other stuff. I've just been driving my dad's car (he's on vacation for about three weeks so I hope to have everything fixed by the time he's back; in the meantime, his car suffices). I'll probably do it tomorrow morning.
Thanks again for all of your help.
B-Well I'm interested in your offer if you're willing to meet up. A minor note though: I live in NoVA (sterling, to be specific) so it would be kinda hard because you live in vabeach, right?
Is anyone else in the Sterling (with semi-reputable mechanical skills :P) be willing to do it for me? I found some shops in the shop listing on this forum with really low labor rates- around $70/hour- but if a typical shop won't let me bring my parts...
I'll be updating as soon as I got the cardboard info.

 

katsuro, you are in no way annoying anyone on here....we're all trying to help. When it comes to "customer supplied parts", many shops(including mine) are iffy on that subject due to the fact that we can't warranty your parts. 9 times outta 10 when someone has a problem, the first place they go is the last place that touched their car. Either way, the situation sucks.....and if a shop can honestly confuse a leaking water pump and leaking oil drain plug, RUN AWAAAAAAY!!! lol

 

Okay, back with the cardboard results...
So I went out to my car, started it, revved it for a little bit and just let it idle to warm it up. Then I put the cardboard under and went to work.
When I came back, ~8 hours later, I looked at the cardboard and...there was nothing there.
Am I safe? Or should I have actually driven around somewhere first?

 

You'd be safer to drive it around some and let it sit then. Get it under load and let it sit. If you dont get anything then, could have been some spilled oil from the change, and thus nothing to worry about.

 

Drove it to school today with some cardboard in my back seat. Put it under there and left it for the whole day. Came back and there was nothing there.

I still want to get it checked out though, to be completely sure. I don't want to go to a shop and just go "Hey, can you check to see if my car has problems?" because then they'll just find more things wrong that aren't necessarily true.

Does anyone have a solid, reliable shop around NoVA that I could go to? I looked in the NoVA region section but there's not many reviews for the few shops that are relatively close to me (I live in Sterling.)

 

Just an update to settle this and to once more thank everyone who's helped me. I took my car to a family friend who we finally got a hold of and there was nothing majorly wrong. Either they were BSing me or it was just spilled oil..
Anyways, thanks a bunch.

 

Wow, that's quite a different diagnosis from a leaking water pump. Glad you got a second opinion.

 

Not sure if anyone has addressed it yet, but if you are changing the water pump also change your timing belt. If you need someone with lots of experience to do it for you give me a pm.