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Random Quote: I have nice six pack abs, so nice I keep them well padded.
What engines? Generally Volvos are very good if properly maintained and propped. First question is do they spin up to at least the maximum RPM @ WOT. Get a mechanical survey from an authorized Volvo mechanic.
I have had several volvos in pieces of equipment that I owned
I will never buy another machine with a volvo.
parts are expensive, rebuilds are insane, engines IMO are not worth the effort
Volvo is a good engine. Many commercial boats have them. I would be concerned about the slow trolling and the turbo. There is a good possiblity of carbon build up in the turbo. If he trolled, he should have spooled the turbos up every few hours and run them hard. 1600 hours in some diesels is just getting started, but in others, there may be at least a turbo rebuild in the future. I would get a factory trained Volvo mechanic to look at the engine. I had a boat with a Volvo 41 B--and it had not been run much. I get it for a reduced price, because of my engine survey--and had the turbo rebuilt.
My boat has a Volvo TAMD41P engine with about 2900+ hrs. It had about 2800 hrs when I bought it. The PO seemed to be a person who kept up on maintenance.
It starts, it runs, the boat moves. I've only had to change the fluids and filters. Parts may be expensive, but what marine engine parts aren't? Especially Diesels?
I'm sure for everyone who has had a problem with their Volvo engine, there are dozens, if not hundreds of satisfied users.
I've learned to take web forum opinions on brands of boats, trailers, engines, etc. with a "grain of salt".
That particular boat likely has TAMD 63PA engines. My personal favorite of all the VP diesels. They will occsoinally blow an intake plenum gasket and the after coolers require service but a real workhorse to be sure. Get a real engine survey done and have fun. Nice boat, nice motors.
I ran that same boat with cummins as well. No real difference.
__________________ Baitkiller= Accredited Marine Surveyor
Bait fear me, fish just laugh.....
The little Dutch boy was just buying time...
I have two good friends who have had Volvos. One, a single I/O in a houseboat. The other twins in a Phoenix 27. Do the regular maintenance or pay $$$$ for your neglect. Neither had any real issues.
Can't comment on your particular Volvos but have a pair of older TAMD41A's in mine. They've been good to me, very economical to run and reliable. That said some of the parts, like fuel lines for instance, seem to be particular to Volvo and are indeed more expensive than what they ought to be. The fuel lines on mine have these compression fittings (banjo fittings?) and cost about $125 each. I am also now replacing an oil cooler on the s/b engine that will set me back $2k + install. Missing Labor Day weekend which is almost worse than the cost since it's the first nice weekend in a month......
__________________
1967 BW Nauset w/ 88SPL Johnson
I was shopping for a Blackfin at the time, when one of the guys at the marina, told me about his ordeal. He had repowered his 28, with new Volvos and just a month outside of the 1 year warranty, he had oil in the bilge. Turns out that the oil pans had pin holes in the bottom, and began seeping. He said the holes were where baffles were spot-welded inside the pan. The pans were made of stamped steel, and thin, at that!!! Volvo denied his warranty claim, and the worse part is that the engines had to be lifted, to change them... otherwise not enough clearance. Maybe that was a rare event, but I'll always remember what he told me about his Volvo experience.
The Blackfin I ended up buying had Cummins engines, and the oil pans were made of cast aluminum, not stamped steel. Those Cummins were absoultely bullet-proof for the 6 years I had that boat, and I'd buy them again in a heartbeat.
__________________ Capt Will, 2002 G/W 282 Sailfish, F225's
USCG Master, 50 Ton; Towing endorsement
Indian River, De
Volvo does not care about the customer, they must be to large or something. I went through some issues with my set-up and I was not happy with the outcome from my dealer and they could care less. There is no customer support at all. It is a good product, but they will never see another penny from me. I hope they go bankrupt, and they all end up out of work. F--k Volvo.
Marine Power Outage
More than four years ago BoatU.S. Magazine published “Engine Blocks Choke on Water” about water ingestion problems involving marine engines built on GM automotive “big blocks.” After over 50 boat owners reported similar engine failures to BoatU.S. and long after three major engine manufacturers developed ways to mitigate these failures, Marine Power USA has yet to bring an end to the engine failures experienced by a Connecticut couple.
Ann and Dave Farrington of Fairfield, CT, reported to BoatU.S. that their Luhrs 32 Convertible has been out of commission for months each and every boating season they’ve owned it due to catastrophic failures of its twin 5.7L Marine Power gasoline-powered engines.
These engines are built on GM 5.7L automotive blocks. As was outlined in our January 2003 article, marine engines using GM 7.4L, and 8.1L blocks have a well-known propensity for suffering valve failures when condensation from the exhaust migrates back to the engine due to the vacuum created during the intake stroke. Over time, salt crystals from the condensation cause rust on the valves, the valves stick or do not close properly and more water migrates back to the engine.
Although four replacement engines have been installed on the Farringtons’ boat, the installations have been the rough equivalent of replacing a burnt-out light bulb. Each time an engine fails, it has been bench tested at the Marine Power factory, failure has been diagnosed as water ingestion and an identical engine — with no modifications — is sent back to the owners in exchange.
The engine problems are bad enough but, concurrent with the first engine breakdown in 2003, the Farringtons discovered that the gel coat below the waterline was peeling off in at least 30 places. Temporary repairs were made but a major overhaul, paid for by Luhrs, occupied most of the 2005-06 winter. In the ensuing years, the retail dealer, Petzolds Marine Center in Portland, CT, has corrected a number of cosmetic and mechanical conditions fairly typical of most new boats.
Although these problems for the most part have been remedied, they have added to the disappointment and anger Mrs. Farrington says she and her husband feel.
Since purchasing the vessel, the boat owners’ costs run close to $40,000 for boat payments, slip rental and other expenses, to say nothing of cancelled vacation plans and the utter frustration of paying in good faith for a boat Mrs. Farrington describes as a “lemon.”
In responding to the boat owners’ complaints, Luhrs, Marine Power and Petzolds have all demonstrated to varying degrees exactly how far they are willing to go to assist their customers. In the case of Luhrs and Petzolds, that would be pretty far indeed.
Although BoatU.S., the Farringtons, Luhrs and Petzolds have contacted Marine Power numerous times, up until recently, the engine maker’s response has been limited to bench-testing the faulty engines at the factory and providing rebuilt engines. Period. Luhrs and the dealer contributed time and labor to get them installed.
Marine Power offers a flapper valve with a rubber lip that is supposed to prohibit the engine pulse from sucking water up the exhaust. Despite requests by the owners, Luhrs, Petzolds and BoatU.S., Marine Power has not sent an engineer to evaluate the engines as they are installed in the boat, nor has the Ponchatoula, LA, company been able to explain why salt deposits form on the intake valves to the point that the engines fail.
Marine Power 5.7L engines are marinized versions of GM automotive power packages. Like Volvo, Mercruiser, and Crusader, Marine Power buys long blocks containing the engine block, cylinder heads, crankshaft and pistons from GM and converts them for marine use by fitting them out with ignition-protected electrical components, as well as raw-water cooling and water-cooled and wetted exhaust systems. The blocks are also reinforced to withstand the prolonged, heavy use common to marine engines.
What doesn’t alter in the automotive-to-marine transformation is the valve overlap GM builds into the engines to improve efficiency. Valve overlap refers to the brief interval when the intake and exhaust valves are open during the start of the intake stroke, when the fuel-air mixture enters the combustion chamber. The pressure of the incoming mix pushes out the exhaust gases and makes the engine more powerful at high rpm levels.
Water ingestion is more likely to occur with through-hull exhaust systems and is less common with the through-prop exhausts found on sterndrive engines. Although Marine Power is keeping mum on a definitive explanation or a means to prevent future damage, a marine surveyor who specializes in engines confirms that this is probably the cause of the engine breakdowns the Farringtons have suffered. “From the dropped valves, it is my opinion that…salt water vapor has affected the valve stems, causing them to bind up. No solid water was found in the cylinders,” stated marine surveyor John Robertson of Amityville, NY.
“Factory tear-down of this engine must involve measuring the valve stems for buildup of any sort, measurements and clearance to the [valve] guides and a chemical analysis of any residue,” he recommended.
Robertson explained, “Being involved for many years on exhaust problems, dating back to the early days of the Chrysler Crowns, Sea Bees, Interceptors and Graymarine engines, running tests showed the valve overlap did in fact cause water ingestion and valve problems.”
In addition to the Farrington’s complaint, BoatU.S. has received reports in past years about water ingestion failures involving engines made by Mercruiser, Volvo and Crusader. However, these three companies developed new exhaust systems to mitigate the problem and Merc also developed an exhaust resonator kit that can be used to retrofit older designs.
Volvo’s solution is to increase the exhaust rise and incorporate baffles in the exhaust, as well as install a vacuum kit that diverts ingested water back into the outer part of the exhaust.
Back to the present. At this point, neither the Farringtons, Luhrs nor Petzolds is waiting to find out if Marine Power can solve the problem. After discussions last fall with BoatU.S. and the Farringtons, Luhrs and Petzolds agreed that replacing the engines with a different make is the best way to get the Farringtons back on the water in 2007.
In response, Marine Power offered to repair the faulty engines, send them back to Luhrs, so that Luhrs can sell them, using the proceeds to offset the cost of new engines for the Farringtons.
“We expected Marine Power USA to provide a minimum of $30,000 as Luhrs had already covered significant expense on engine related issues, along with goodwill, that is not a covered expense under the boat warranty,” said Mike Hankins, Luhrs’ director of customer relations.
“Our position is to provide 315 Yanmar diesel engines and gearboxes in their boat,” said Hankins. “We have always held out hope that Marine Power would provide the dollar difference between what Marine Power could sell the Farrington’s old motors for (which Luhrs has paid for most of) and what a set of diesels would be, approximately $18,000 each.
In the sometimes complex world of marine warranties, the boat manufacturer usually covers just the boat structure, while the engine manufacturer is responsible for the engine itself. Problems that develop when the engine installation or exhaust design do not conform to the engine maker’s recommendations are the responsibility of the boat manufacturer. Installation and exhaust design do not seem to be factors in the Farringtons’ case. If they were, it is almost certain Marine Power would have pointed out the anomalies.
Luhrs boats are built by Luhrs Marine Group, which also owns Hunter, Mainship and Silverton. The company stopped using Marine Power engines in 2003 because they decided to power all their models with diesel plants. “When we began to consider using gas again,” Hankins explained, “We chose Crusader and Volvo due to service support experience reported to us by Silverton and others.” Over the years, power options for the Luhrs 32 included Yanmar and Cummins diesels and Mercruiser gas engines.
In an effort to move the situation ahead, BoatU.S. offered to set up a mediation panel to review the Farringtons’ case. Several years ago, BoatU.S., along with the National Marine Manufacturers Association and the Marine Retailers Association of America established the BetterBOAT dispute resolution program to provide a peer review forum for settling complex cases, especially ones like this, where the parties are sharply divided. BetterBOAT settlement recommendations are non-binding.
Although, Marine Power failed to reply to our offer, company president W.E. Allbright, Jr., recently told BoatU.S., “I have some strong feelings about the proposed remedy [to install Yanmar engines] but I would be happy to participate in any type of conference call that can move this situation forward.” However when that call was recently scheduled, Allbright did not participate.
With an April launch date fast approaching, unless there is more substantive participation from Marine Power, it seems like Luhrs and the Farringtons will have some tough, expensive decisions to make.
(c) Copyright BoatU.S. Magazine, Mar 2007
Last edited by GEORGE LOOP; 09-05-2009 at 03:17 PM.
Reason: pasted article
I have a set of Volvos in my pursuit offshore express. Albiet the boat is bit under powered I have put over 1000 hours they are now at 1700 . I have had very little trouble and many trips to the bahamas with my volvos. As long as you change the oil,filters every 100 hours or less you should be fine..I heard all the bad things about volvos and I can say they are extremely reliable in my opinion and they can be re sleeved and rebuilt.
Having said this I am looking to repower as I want more speed. I most likely will go with Cummins or Yanmar the only reason is price plain and simple otherwise I would go with volvo.
Get good mechanical survey as long as they have no been abused i think you will be fine.
__________________ "God is not our side because he hates idiots" TGB and U
"There are 2 kinds of people in this world those with guns and those who dig..........you dig"
Marine Power Outage
More than four years ago BoatU.S. Magazine published “Engine Blocks Choke on Water” about water ingestion problems involving marine engines built on GM automotive “big blocks.” After over 50 boat owners reported similar engine failures to BoatU.S. and long after three major engine manufacturers developed ways to mitigate these failures, Marine Power USA has yet to bring an end to the engine failures experienced by a Connecticut couple.
Ann and Dave Farrington of Fairfield, CT, reported to BoatU.S. that their Luhrs 32 Convertible has been out of commission for months each and every boating season they’ve owned it due to catastrophic failures of its twin 5.7L Marine Power gasoline-powered engines.
These engines are built on GM 5.7L automotive blocks. As was outlined in our January 2003 article, marine engines using GM 7.4L, and 8.1L blocks have a well-known propensity for suffering valve failures when condensation from the exhaust migrates back to the engine due to the vacuum created during the intake stroke. Over time, salt crystals from the condensation cause rust on the valves, the valves stick or do not close properly and more water migrates back to the engine.
Although four replacement engines have been installed on the Farringtons’ boat, the installations have been the rough equivalent of replacing a burnt-out light bulb. Each time an engine fails, it has been bench tested at the Marine Power factory, failure has been diagnosed as water ingestion and an identical engine — with no modifications — is sent back to the owners in exchange.
The engine problems are bad enough but, concurrent with the first engine breakdown in 2003, the Farringtons discovered that the gel coat below the waterline was peeling off in at least 30 places. Temporary repairs were made but a major overhaul, paid for by Luhrs, occupied most of the 2005-06 winter. In the ensuing years, the retail dealer, Petzolds Marine Center in Portland, CT, has corrected a number of cosmetic and mechanical conditions fairly typical of most new boats.
Although these problems for the most part have been remedied, they have added to the disappointment and anger Mrs. Farrington says she and her husband feel.
Since purchasing the vessel, the boat owners’ costs run close to $40,000 for boat payments, slip rental and other expenses, to say nothing of cancelled vacation plans and the utter frustration of paying in good faith for a boat Mrs. Farrington describes as a “lemon.”
In responding to the boat owners’ complaints, Luhrs, Marine Power and Petzolds have all demonstrated to varying degrees exactly how far they are willing to go to assist their customers. In the case of Luhrs and Petzolds, that would be pretty far indeed.
Although BoatU.S., the Farringtons, Luhrs and Petzolds have contacted Marine Power numerous times, up until recently, the engine maker’s response has been limited to bench-testing the faulty engines at the factory and providing rebuilt engines. Period. Luhrs and the dealer contributed time and labor to get them installed.
Marine Power offers a flapper valve with a rubber lip that is supposed to prohibit the engine pulse from sucking water up the exhaust. Despite requests by the owners, Luhrs, Petzolds and BoatU.S., Marine Power has not sent an engineer to evaluate the engines as they are installed in the boat, nor has the Ponchatoula, LA, company been able to explain why salt deposits form on the intake valves to the point that the engines fail.
Marine Power 5.7L engines are marinized versions of GM automotive power packages. Like Volvo, Mercruiser, and Crusader, Marine Power buys long blocks containing the engine block, cylinder heads, crankshaft and pistons from GM and converts them for marine use by fitting them out with ignition-protected electrical components, as well as raw-water cooling and water-cooled and wetted exhaust systems. The blocks are also reinforced to withstand the prolonged, heavy use common to marine engines.
What doesn’t alter in the automotive-to-marine transformation is the valve overlap GM builds into the engines to improve efficiency. Valve overlap refers to the brief interval when the intake and exhaust valves are open during the start of the intake stroke, when the fuel-air mixture enters the combustion chamber. The pressure of the incoming mix pushes out the exhaust gases and makes the engine more powerful at high rpm levels.
Water ingestion is more likely to occur with through-hull exhaust systems and is less common with the through-prop exhausts found on sterndrive engines. Although Marine Power is keeping mum on a definitive explanation or a means to prevent future damage, a marine surveyor who specializes in engines confirms that this is probably the cause of the engine breakdowns the Farringtons have suffered. “From the dropped valves, it is my opinion that…salt water vapor has affected the valve stems, causing them to bind up. No solid water was found in the cylinders,” stated marine surveyor John Robertson of Amityville, NY.
“Factory tear-down of this engine must involve measuring the valve stems for buildup of any sort, measurements and clearance to the [valve] guides and a chemical analysis of any residue,” he recommended.
Robertson explained, “Being involved for many years on exhaust problems, dating back to the early days of the Chrysler Crowns, Sea Bees, Interceptors and Graymarine engines, running tests showed the valve overlap did in fact cause water ingestion and valve problems.”
In addition to the Farrington’s complaint, BoatU.S. has received reports in past years about water ingestion failures involving engines made by Mercruiser, Volvo and Crusader. However, these three companies developed new exhaust systems to mitigate the problem and Merc also developed an exhaust resonator kit that can be used to retrofit older designs.
Volvo’s solution is to increase the exhaust rise and incorporate baffles in the exhaust, as well as install a vacuum kit that diverts ingested water back into the outer part of the exhaust.
Back to the present. At this point, neither the Farringtons, Luhrs nor Petzolds is waiting to find out if Marine Power can solve the problem. After discussions last fall with BoatU.S. and the Farringtons, Luhrs and Petzolds agreed that replacing the engines with a different make is the best way to get the Farringtons back on the water in 2007.
In response, Marine Power offered to repair the faulty engines, send them back to Luhrs, so that Luhrs can sell them, using the proceeds to offset the cost of new engines for the Farringtons.
“We expected Marine Power USA to provide a minimum of $30,000 as Luhrs had already covered significant expense on engine related issues, along with goodwill, that is not a covered expense under the boat warranty,” said Mike Hankins, Luhrs’ director of customer relations.
“Our position is to provide 315 Yanmar diesel engines and gearboxes in their boat,” said Hankins. “We have always held out hope that Marine Power would provide the dollar difference between what Marine Power could sell the Farrington’s old motors for (which Luhrs has paid for most of) and what a set of diesels would be, approximately $18,000 each.
In the sometimes complex world of marine warranties, the boat manufacturer usually covers just the boat structure, while the engine manufacturer is responsible for the engine itself. Problems that develop when the engine installation or exhaust design do not conform to the engine maker’s recommendations are the responsibility of the boat manufacturer. Installation and exhaust design do not seem to be factors in the Farringtons’ case. If they were, it is almost certain Marine Power would have pointed out the anomalies.
Luhrs boats are built by Luhrs Marine Group, which also owns Hunter, Mainship and Silverton. The company stopped using Marine Power engines in 2003 because they decided to power all their models with diesel plants. “When we began to consider using gas again,” Hankins explained, “We chose Crusader and Volvo due to service support experience reported to us by Silverton and others.” Over the years, power options for the Luhrs 32 included Yanmar and Cummins diesels and Mercruiser gas engines.
In an effort to move the situation ahead, BoatU.S. offered to set up a mediation panel to review the Farringtons’ case. Several years ago, BoatU.S., along with the National Marine Manufacturers Association and the Marine Retailers Association of America established the BetterBOAT dispute resolution program to provide a peer review forum for settling complex cases, especially ones like this, where the parties are sharply divided. BetterBOAT settlement recommendations are non-binding.
Although, Marine Power failed to reply to our offer, company president W.E. Allbright, Jr., recently told BoatU.S., “I have some strong feelings about the proposed remedy [to install Yanmar engines] but I would be happy to participate in any type of conference call that can move this situation forward.” However when that call was recently scheduled, Allbright did not participate.
With an April launch date fast approaching, unless there is more substantive participation from Marine Power, it seems like Luhrs and the Farringtons will have some tough, expensive decisions to make.
(c) Copyright BoatU.S. Magazine, Mar 2007
This only one manu.these guys did not install properly
I was shopping for a Blackfin at the time, when one of the guys at the marina, told me about his ordeal. He had repowered his 28, with new Volvos and just a month outside of the 1 year warranty, he had oil in the bilge. Turns out that the oil pans had pin holes in the bottom, and began seeping. He said the holes were where baffles were spot-welded inside the pan. The pans were made of stamped steel, and thin, at that!!! Volvo denied his warranty claim, and the worse part is that the engines had to be lifted, to change them... otherwise not enough clearance. Maybe that was a rare event, but I'll always remember what he told me about his Volvo experience.
The Blackfin I ended up buying had Cummins engines, and the oil pans were made of cast aluminum, not stamped steel. Those Cummins were absoultely bullet-proof for the 6 years I had that boat, and I'd buy them again in a heartbeat.
I replaced a pair of Volvo TAMD70Es with a paid of Cummins 370Bs in a custom 35' express - It was the smartest move I ever made and my only regret was not doing it sooner.
My experience with Volvo was not favorable. They smoked and oozed oil from the day we got them. We were constantly in the bilge with oil-zorb rags and other things fighting a losing battle to prevent an oil slick every time the bilge pump kicked on We followed all the regular maintenance yet we had an overheating problem after 6 or 7 seasons. It turned out that the engines had an internal "screen" in the cooling system that had clogged (apparently this was a known issue with these engines - the internal, sacrificial pencil zincs would deteriorate and the bits would get trapped in the screen) - not an expensive part but HUGE maintenance hours to get to it - and the parts were back ordered for 6 weeks. We lost half a season and had a $4K yard bill. Parts were expensive - very expensive and often we had to wait for them. Had a mechanic drop the cap to the cooling system over the side - took 3 weeks for him to get a new one - and he was so shocked at the price he showed us the bill - over $100. Also, We lost a turbo at 1200 hours.
When the overheat problem was starting to happen again - we re-powered. Gained 140 hp and lightened the boat by over 2K pounds. It was like getting a new boat.
That was my experience with Volvo - BUT, I know plenty of boaters that have them and are completely satisfied.
I had a volvo tamd40b put 23000+ hrs on it. I replaced the starter once. 2 or 3 altenators and one water pump. I replaced it with a tamd41p. This engine must have 7000+ I know it needs an altenater. I don't know of any other engines that have performed as my first one did but it appears the second one is following in its footsteps. My new boat with the D6330 has about 600 rs in 5 months.
Volvo does not care about the customer, they must be to large or something. I went through some issues with my set-up and I was not happy with the outcome from my dealer and they could care less. There is no customer support at all. It is a good product, but they will never see another penny from me. I hope they go bankrupt, and they all end up out of work. F--k Volvo.
Man is that funny.....Not happy with the dealer or Volvo. I can just imagine what REALLY went down. But frankly, dont care.
Mad enough to wish them belly up, unemployed, complete with an F bomb...but still right there in your sig.
OP asked for info on a Diesel, and there's a long winded post about GM Gas Blocks???
Back on topic- I have had a few & worked on many. Sounds like you are talking about a 63series. Great engines, reliable, and stout. Stay on the filters, cooling system maintenance & only use Volvo coolant, and you will enjoy many hours of engine use.
Mine have been great. Prop them properly, rated plus 50 rpm minimum, keep up the periodic items, oil, filters, seawater side cleaning, etc., they'll do fine.
Go to www.boatdiesel.com, there is a search drop-down at the top for engines, you'll find hours of good rading.
From a resale standpoint they are not the most popular engine. The 370 HP are the 60 series engiine which has been a very good motor. However the amount of unhappy owners, who have been forced to pay larcenous prices for parts from Volvo distributers, (when they finally arrive) have soured the engine in the resale market. They have not done a good job of taking care of many of their customers. Many previous owners now say, "anything but a Volvo."
Man is that funny.....Not happy with the dealer or Volvo. I can just imagine what REALLY went down. But frankly, dont care.
Mad enough to wish them belly up, unemployed, complete with an F bomb...but still right there in your sig.
OP asked for info on a Diesel, and there's a long winded post about GM Gas Blocks???
I agree with you, but the OP did ask for "opinions".
Quote:
Back on topic- I have had a few & worked on many. Sounds like you are talking about a 63series. Great engines, reliable, and stout. Stay on the filters, cooling system maintenance & only use Volvo coolant, and you will enjoy many hours of engine use.
Volvo coolant is about $30.00 per gallon and since Walmart doesn't sell it, you have to pay whatever your local Volvo parts store charges. Mine charges list plus 3% for credit card use.
Several people have suggested using a cheaper brand, but I feel safer following the manufacturer's recommendation.
Opinions Needed: Volvo diesels. 
