1- I work on a lot of sail boats and by a large margin the Volvo's, affectionately called
The Green-Grief up this way, are the ones that are least likely to even be repairable due to a lack of parts availability. I have seen more Volvo engines go to the scrap heap than any other engine brand and almost always due to a lack of repair parts. Because they are a small player in the sailboat market even finding used engines, to salvage parts from, is very difficult where a Kubota or Yanmar or Mitsubishi are considerably easier.
2- For sailboat engines Volvo is
third in-line from the actual engine manufacturer. Volvo buys the engines through Perkins. Perkins buys the engines through Shibaura in Japan but Perkins removes all Shibaura markings, embossing the castings with Perkins numbers, so crossing over to a Shibaura tractor motor is made pretty much impossible.
Perkins also won't sell you a replacement long block for a
Green-Grief / Volvo engine. Tried that route through a number of European dealers. Shibaura engines are considered, by any good diesel mechanic I know of, as the absolute lowest rung of small Japanese diesel engines and the worst reliability of the Japanese diesels.. They are built more to a price point rather than a reliability standard like a Kubota, Mitsubishi or Yanmar is. Even my local tractor dealer won't rebuild a Shibaura engine but they will rebuild Kubota, Mitsubishi and Yanmar..
3- In a recent conversation with one of Volvo's largest parts dealers it was stated that, in their opinion, Volvo only really cares to ship
containers of sailboat engines to OEM's. The after market support for Volvo sailboat engines is absolutely HORRID.
After my latest Volvo fiasco I called a friend in the industry in VA. He lives near Volvo NA & told me their parts room in VA, for sailboat engines, is approx 10' X 10' and mostly full of filters. No wonder it took 6 weeks, in the middle of the sailing season, to get a critical $3.00 part....
4- I will give this as a single example but I have many more I can point to including one of my own boats with the last Volvo Penta I would ever own..
On Thursday May 12th at 12:06 PM I get a panicked string of text messages from a customer with a Beneteau 36.7. There are 7 photos of his engine with oil everywhere. Boat was launched, commissioned, sea trialed, run to temp levels checked etc. etc. and all was fine. After sailing from the boat yard to his summer mooring he fired up the engine to motor into the mooring field. It was blowing stink when he heard a screeching racket, said it sounded like a wrapped floating line on the prop, and then about 20 seconds later the engine alarm went off. He immediately shut down the engine, re-hoisted the sail, and sailed onto the mooring.
When he opened up the engine bay there was oil everywhere. The engine, for no known reason, or no good reason, spit out what is called a "casting plug" from one of the oil journals. This is NOT a freeze plug in the antifreeze circuit, it is a casting plug in the oil circuit.. This low hour engine had been impeccably maintained using not only Volvo filters but Volvo fluids as well. It was also maintained at far earlier than factory suggested intervals.
When the casting plug came out it caused the oil pump to literally pump all the oil straight out of the engine, at cruise RPM! Once the engine was out of oil, any oil lubed surface were destroyed before he could even shut down the engine. Cylinders, pistons, crank bearings, cam, valve guides etc. etc. on and on. Of course at this point he had no idea what had happened. While cleaning up the engine bay he found the casting plug. It was then we realized what had happened. It took weeks to get a hold of anyone at Volvo who would return a call or who could tell us how or why this happened. We spoke with nearly every Volvo dealer in the US and some in Canada and not a one of them had the casting plug in stock but a few had seen this happen.. The owner paid for expedited shipping from Europe, shipping being nearly 15X the cost of the part, and "Volvo expedited" still took six weeks.
Volvo response to owner:
"Not supposed to happen, and never has."
"That plug is stainless"
"Engine is probably still be fine."
The casting plug is specified as stainless steel. Into a cast iron block? Okay...
The
actual plug was soft aluminum. Into a cast iron block? Okay..
The replacement "expedited" casting plug was also soft aluminum, NOT the "specified" SS nor machined from the same cast iron as the block. Heck even "low tech" reputable boiler manufacturers machine the nipples, that hold the sections together, out of cast iron so they expand and contract at the same rate..
So now, six weeks "expedited" later, we have the casting plug installed. We change oil & filter and carefully fire up the motor. The motor starts but is billowing blue smoke. Wait for it to burn off, like a worn valve guide might, nope. She continues to billow blue smoke.. The engine is not only smoking but sounds a bit off too. Compression tests reveal what is to be expected, low compression.
Owner needs a new engine. No problem this engine was still in production in 2006, less than 10 years out of production, we'll just order you a new or re-manufactured long block and you'll be on your way in a few weeks..
WRONG!!! Volvo never even offered a long block for the MD-2030 even when it was a current production model. Volvo also does not re-manufacture or know of anyone re-manufacturing these engines. Kubota & Yanmar are easy to find, rman or new Volvo MD-2030 long blocks simply don't exist. MD-2030 long block? There is no such creature.. Amazing fail on Volvo's part.... How do you build an engine and not have a long block available?
Okay, lets start pricing the parts for a rebuild.
Short block (cast iron block only with NOTHING in it) $4126.00+!!!!!!!
Oh but wait many of the parts that were needed for the rebuild, that would need to be replaced, are listed as "out of production" or "obsolete part". This is a 2006 motor for Christ sake!!!! Obsolete? Out of production?
Long and short the parts alone to rebuild this engine, and many are not even available, were going to exceed $17,000.00!!!!
Cheap engine & lack of parts = expected results
The scary part is that no one at Volvo, nor any of their dealers, had any way of telling us how to prevent this from happening again, or why it happened in the first place. Volvo NA denied it has ever happened but there are dealers out there who have seen it happen so I doubt Volvo NA was being completely truthful.
The owner, who wanted to continue his racing season, decided to keep running the engine, seeing as it was already shot. The engine ran for 1.75 more hours before it seized solid. Engine is now out, boat still on mooring and we are waiting for the new engine to get here.
Replacement Engine:
Neither Volvo nor Perkins were of any help and any replacement we can find is used or in Europe costing 3X a new Beta by the time it would get here and he'd still have a low quality engine with many "obsolete" parts. Oh and even if we did order one, it might not make it through customs due to EPA regulations....
So I now pick up the phone & call Stanley at Beta marine USA. Have Stan on phone in about 15 seconds (Volvo took weeks). Stan has bent over backwards to the point that he is doing custom mounts and a custom bell housing machined to bolt directly to the Volvo sail drive & gear saving the cost of a gear and sail drive leg.
Total cost of new Kubota based Beta engine? Approx 1/2 the cost of just the parts to repair the MD-2030, not including labor. Does Beta hide the original engine maker or model number from the end user? Hell no, they tell you exactly what Kubota engine it is. This means any tractor store can sell you the Kubota based parts at a fraction of the cost of Volvo/Perkins/Shibaura parts..
After this transpired, the owner, who used me as his purchasing consultant, looked and me and said;
"You know Rod, one of the first things you said to me was; "
walk away from any boat with a Volvo unless the price is reduced by the cost of a repower." Apparently I should have listened because I paid full price and now need the repower."
So sure, go ahead and buy a Volvo but do so being well warned.... I won't even go into the nearly seven figure figure mistake buying a Grand Banks Europa, with twin Volvo IPS drives, cost one of my very wealthy customers.....
He now has a new Sabre, without Volvo engines....
Sorry for the rant but I don't get to operate on an n=1 basis. Even when I was n=1 my own Volvo was a horrid POS and parts were impossible to get. One part put us our of engine commission for an entire season. Sold the boat as soon as the part came in.
Sure owners
can get lucky, and get many good years of service from a Volvo, but many don't get lucky. I see the problems across many hundreds of vessels and by far Volvo sailboat sized engines are the worst of the lot in terms of reliability and parts access..
