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Engine life expectancy


I Spartacus

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Just asking a question here what is the average life expectancy of a derv engine these days. I know that they say 250,000 for a car , but what would you say for a boat in hours before things need to be addressed, such as a 80hpl Volvo penta or a Yanmar ? just looking for advise  if anyone can help

 

Many thanks 

 

Edited by I Spartacus
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Can only speak for an engine I am familiar with, but the Misubishi S4L as used by Vetus, Sole, thornycroft etc has a design life of 10,000 hrs it would appear, though I know of Vetus engines achieving significantly higher hours without overhaul. 

Edited by Guest
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Depends on the engine and how it is maintained.

I had shares in two 58 foot shared ownership boats.

The first had a 1.4 Mitsubishi based engine . Needed replacement at 9,000 hours.

The second had a Turkish built BMC 1.8, and much to my surprise it lasted longer,  being replaced at 13,000 hours.

I have seen Beta 43's (based on a Kubota industrial plant engine) with over 15,000 hours on them and still going strong.

Several historic boat owners on this forum will have engines that have done even more hours.

Edited by cuthound
To unmangle the effects of autocorrect.
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My Kubota in my last boat did 11000 before a share owner managed to drain the oil out of it whilst it was running!! The replacement had about 2500 on it when I sold the boat.

Car wise I have replaced loads of 2.7 diesels in Jags and Land Rovers with very low miles on them same with the Xtype diesels they are nowhere near as good as people believe

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1 minute ago, peterboat said:

I have replaced loads of 2.7 diesels in Jags and Land Rovers with very low miles on them

I bet none of them had received regular oil changes. 

Those engines really need them. 

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4 minutes ago, WotEver said:

I bet none of them had received regular oil changes. 

Those engines really need them. 

They have Tony its just that DPFs cause havoc on the 2.7s floods the engine with diesel and bang!!!

The x types have similar problems if they are late DPF equipped but the early ones have other issues that cause their early demise like EGRs/inlet manifolds choking up and the big lumps of carbon dislodge and get eaten with disastrous expensive results

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I would echo the thoughts above many engines in private hands pretty much manage to last a long time and even the same lifespan as the boat 10000hrs should be achievable and many go far beyond that.  It really does depend on how well they have been maintained and used.  Our boats engine is still the one it was launched with in 1995 which is an early Betamarine Kubota Bv1505. I can't say how many hours it has done though as it hasn't had an hours clock fitted for all the time.

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37 minutes ago, peterboat said:

They have Tony its just that DPFs cause havoc on the 2.7s floods the engine with diesel and bang!!!

Ahh, I ensure I take mine on frequent enough, hot enough runs to clean out the DPFs, and I never ignore an EML. 

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My Kelvin J  is now approaching 71. It spent its early years (from Oct 1946)  in a boat called Skylark, in Brighton.  It has done about 500 hrs a year every year since 1990. Lord only knows what the total hours are but it  is recorded as having had two sets of liners and pistons and 3 sets of big ends in that time.

Any engine wiĺl last as long as you can get bits for it. Making bits available is not a modern practice, unfortunately.

N

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55 minutes ago, WotEver said:

Ahh, I ensure I take mine on frequent enough, hot enough runs to clean out the DPFs, and I never ignore an EML. 

Keep an eye on engine oil level as well, it can go up if it regens frequently and if too high can give real problems as well as making the oil a bit thin as it contains a significant amount of diesel.

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The BMC 1.5 in our boat had done 22,000 hours before I had it re-built. The engineer who did it suggested that re-builds rarely last as long as new engines, but it should not need any serious attention for anothe 15,000 hours

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When our boat was built 25 years ago we had a Perkins MC42 fitted. With meticulous maintenance (& 3 new gearboxes) it lasted 16000 hours in 23 years before it just wasn't worth the expense of trying to keep it going any more. If it had been in a car, averaging 30 mph, that would have been nearly half a million miles. We replaced it with a Beta.

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As far as we know the major rebuild we have just had done on a Lister HA2 is the first it has had since being fitted to Flamingo in 1968, when still an active Willow Wren carrying boat.

Since it completed a couple more years carrying, and about 20 years as a trip boat, before becoming a private converted boat for around a further 27 years.

It has not until recently had any kind of hour counter, so I can't actually equate it'd first apparent rebuild in nearly 50 years with an actual number fir hours run,

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Beta 43 rebuilt at 10k hours 9 years old . Wouldn't have had it done then but the woodruff key came out ...... again and this time we had the crankshaft re ground to take a bigger key . Just over 1,500 on re built engine .

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A little used engine may not live as many trouble free engine hours as a frequently used engine. Also regular oil changes at the correct engine hour intervals or annually  are important.

Marine engines, in a leisure boat,  may last as long as the boat . Again very dependant on use of the boat. Ultimately it may be one of the marine bits that lets down the engine, such as the cooling system on an engine that relies on raw water for cooling.

If a diesel can last 250,000 miles in a car , that is is 6250 hours at an average of 40mph. So a boat engine should last at least the same hours.

 

 

 

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Our BMC 1.5 had its last major rebuild when we were at Upton which was the year before the big floods.  We've done several thousand hours on it since - we do an oil and filter change every 200 hours.  We've no idea how old it is but it has a very low serial number and was used in an industrial installation before it went into a boat.

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13 hours ago, I Spartacus said:

Just asking a question here what is the average life expectancy of a derv engine these days. I know that they say 250,000 for a car , but what would you say for a boat in hours before things need to be addressed, such as a 80hpl Volvo penta or a Yanmar ? just looking for advise  if anyone can help

 

Many thanks 

 

Until a couple of years ago I skippered a trip boat on the Trent it had twin ford diesels that had been oil changed every 200 hours since birth. The heads had never been off and the engines had done 35 thousand hours.

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Thanks for all the replies, so we are looking at 10,000 hrs plus with good servicing and correct oil changes as recommended. so that is not to bad when you add up the cruising you can do over that time.  I was thinking it would be about 6000 hrs on average so it is nice to know I was wrong many thanks again for all of you replies.

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It also depends upon the design of the engine. I am not sure that I would expect a modern Mitsubishi or Kubota based engine to last as long as (say) a BMC or older Lister given the correct servicing. If you buy a proper marine engine rather than a converted industrial engine then its is likely to be lower stressed and thus last longer.

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