Sucker rod pump operational issues such as rod string floating and system efficiency losses were observed on wells of a polymer flooding pilot as well as during a polymer solution backproduction test in the Vienna Basin. Pumping speed reductions at the affected sucker rod pumps of the polymer flooding pilot where the reaction but are not a general solution when target production rates are supposed to be met. A research project investigating the issues was initiated by OMV. This work is part of this project while investigating the fluid friction caused by produced liquids at the rod string of a sucker rod pump. Thereby, the fluid friction forces for different production scenarios with conventional reservoir fluids and polymer solutions of different concentration are determined. Methodology comprises elementary experiments with a sucker rod pump test facility at the Montanuniversität Leoben and comprehensive CFD simulations with OpenFOAM after a detailed consideration of the fundamentals of the topic. For common sucker rod pump field operation, the fluid friction at a single rod string with 2 rod guides is about 35 % higher with polymer solution concentrations occasionally backproduced in polymer floods than with conventional reservoir fluids. Thereby, the fluid friction forces vary with polymer solution concentration, pumping speed, stroke length, and number of installed rod guides.