A coolant pump and method thereof for a coolant circuit of the internal combustion engine of a motor vehicle including at least a radiator circuit and a bypass circuit is disclosed. The coolant pump contains a coolant pump housing (14) which is provided with an intake pipe (22), a bypass pipe (24), and a pressure pipe (34). A coolant pump electric motor (26) is arranged in the coolant pump housing (14), the motor housing (28) of which is situated in the coolant flow, drives a pump impeller (32) via a pump shaft (30). A directional control valve (40) is integrated into the coolant pump housing (14). The intake pipe (22) is arranged in the area of the end of the pump motor facing away from the pump impeller (32). Furthermore the bypass pipe is arranged in an area downstream of the intake pipe (22).The pressure pipe (34) is arranged in an area downstream of the bypass pipe (24). Only the coolant that can be taken in by the radiator via the intake pipe is adapted to be guided past the pump motor in a peripheral flow (50) in particular through a flow channel (56) limited by the outer wall (52) of the pump motor housing (28) and the facing inner wall (54) of the pump housing and/or the facing inner wall (60) of the directional control valve (40).