BetaMarine or Yanmar. Which would you choose?

[Marcsailcat]

Nanni?

I have Nanni’s 135p TDIs and love them. They are also Kunitz base engines. Very similar to Beta’s. Fuel economy is fantastic. Parts are available from distributors on east and west coast US as well as all over world.

[Marcsailcat]

Sorry I meant Kubota. Damn spell check.

[SV__Grace]

Originally Posted by sck5

Beta engines and parts were nowhere to be seen. That may have changed since 2-3 years ago but I wouldnt get a Beta for that reason.

"Beta engines and parts were nowhere to be seen?" Really?

Is this your direct experience?

If so, were you looking for "Beta" parts or "Kubota" parts?

Beta is a marinized Kubota. Most parts you would need are Kubota, which is ubiquitous all over the world in tractors, forklifts, etc. and more easily available (in my direct experience) than Yanmar and Volvo.

[Charles S]

Read the reviews , after joining, on
https://www.morganscloud.com/
Beta Marine seems to be the consensus

[Finisterre]

Beta 30! I installed myself in my Nassau 34 and it was easy and reliable. Yanmar nice but more money.

[Pete the Cat]

Originally Posted by gulfislandfred

Think twice before you change your old style stuffing box! The new style shaft seals are not as reliable, and can sink your boat.
If you want a dry bilge, you can add a grease fitting on the stuffing box, below the packing, and pump in a bit of waterproof grease twice a year. Standard practice on commercial boats, here in the Salish Sea. If the stuffing box is hard to reach, the grease fitting can be mounted on copper pipe led to a convenient spot.

I second the warning about going to a bellows type stuffing box. As a retired delivery skipper, I had a couple close calls with losing the boat because of them. There are good materials to put in a traditional stuffing box that can render them almost dripless without a lot of plumbing and without the hazard the mechanical materials introduce at this hole in your hull.
As far as Yanmar vs Beta: I have always liked Yanmar for their basic engineering for Marine applications. You do not have a lot of zincs to replace and disparate metals to form corrosive batteries in salt applications like you do with cobbled together "marinized" tractor and taxi engines. There is a reason Yanmar owns the charter fleet and fishing business. Their customer service for do it yourselfers is awful and inexcusable. Seems to me the Yanmar folks are intentionally wanting to get rid of this segment of the market with their crappy customer service. As far as the old saw of "you can get the parts at a tractor store a lot cheaper" argument: well....it isn't the block or injector system that is a trouble spot on marine diesels. In my 40 years of ownership and deliveries it is the cooling and fuel supply systems that are the bugger. You will find that they don't sell raw water pumps and heat exchangers in tractor stores, nor do they sell ABYC approved starter solenoids--and these are the most likely kind of parts you will need. And, yes, you can FedEx parts from the US, but if you are going abroad at all, customs can be a nightmare in other countries and easily cost multiples of the part cost--Yanmar is the world leader with shops all over than they have connections for importing if that becomes an issue. Saving a few bucks on a part could be false economy if you are more days in the yard waiting for it and hoping it will "fit". I have no experience with common rail, but I will guess that no one reading this owns a car that uses a mechanical carburetor with mechanical choke any more. And for those of us old enough to have lived with those fuel systems, I do not see anyone longing to dump their computer controlled fuel injected engines when it comes to reliability. I have installed diesels and do my own work and would not flinch at putting a common rail in a boat---most diesel mechanics I know will not open an injector pump--we just take them to a specialized machine shop--the fuel systems on diesels are not DIY projects. I think the best advice in these comments is to think about how you really are going to use the boat and what will make you happy in terms of confidence and cost.
Ray Durkee
T37 #373

[I36guy]

When it came time to switch out my old Yammy 3GMD, the Yanmar would have been the obvious choice but I went with a Beta 25 and I'm SO happy I did.

It's a sailboater's dream. Easy to work on, all the high-use items are within easy reach. The built-in oil change pump makes it worth it all by itself.

Look up Yanmar parts. For many, only YANMAR parts will fit. Is there a Yanmar dealer near you?

For many items, I go down to the local tractor shop and buy Kubota parts at a fraction of the cost. There's even a cross-reference chart for part numbers. Even if you get the part from Beta, it doesn't feel like you're getting scalped.

I belong to a smallish Yacht Club and as repowers come up, nearly EVERYONE opts for the Beta - even before the local dealer joined the club. I haven't heard a single complaint about the engine or the support.

I had a couple of minor glitches early on - coolant leak around the coolant cap and an oil pressure gauge/alarm that kept erroneously going off. They were right on it. Now coming up on 500 hours and couldn't be happier.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Emouchet

This is fundamentally wrong. A diesel engine must work hard. It should run between 75-85% WOT rpm under a normal day.

If you run your diesel at 40% WOT rpm, this is far from efficient.

That is your opinion that you try to state as fact, when it’s not. Vast majority of Diesels the world over do not run at 75% of power or higher, any road motor doesn’t or if it did it couldn’t make the hills, very few generators do, almost all of them are much higher RPM Diesels but run at 1500 or 1800 RPM, and generator motors are among the longest lasting Diesel motors there are.
Efficiency wise you will find most often two things, that max efficiency is usually around 2/3 of max RPM, and when you run the numbers, the “efficiency” gain of the engine is irrelevant, it’s way exceeded by the greater drag from the hull at higher speeds, so no %75 or higher is very inefficient from a mileage or range perspective.

What you don’t understand is that the average Diesel engine’s power output per Liter or cu in is quite low and this coupled with their usually lower RPM limits makes it so that they will tolerate being run hard, but they don’t “like” it, it’s certainly not required, and will not lead to a longer life.

Relatively short bursts of high power once daily or so is probably “good “ for many engines, the Italian tune up, but not running one hard continously

[benfairn]

I'd have a close look at electric. If you have panels now just add the same new engine$ value in batteries. Never a tune up. No oil, no rusting exchangers etc etc. If your a shaft, not saildrive even easier.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by gulfislandfred

Think twice before you change your old style stuffing box! The new style shaft seals are not as reliable, and can sink your boat.
If you want a dry bilge, you can add a grease fitting on the stuffing box, below the packing, and pump in a bit of waterproof grease twice a year. Standard practice on commercial boats, here in the Salish Sea. If the stuffing box is hard to reach, the grease fitting can be mounted on copper pipe led to a convenient spot.

Back when I was a kid those greasable Stuffing boxes often had white metal cutlass bearings and what you were greasing more than anything was the bearing, but if you kept it greased it would last nearly forever. I never saw one getting changed anyway, so I assumed they lasted a long time.
But yes a shot of grease would stop the drip in them, I’ve wondered what it would do to a modern rubber type of Cutlass.

Just before we started cruising full time, I guess three years ago I had PTFE packing installed, had lots of other things done too like shortening drive shaft etc, but after initial break in, it’s not leaked since, and it doesn’t run hot and I’ve not had to adjust it in three years, makes me nervous about what could be going on unseen but so far it’s been great.

[Carl-T705]

I don't know if it has been mentioned yet ( no time to read 8 pages) but if you're in one yanmar dealer area and they don't have a part you need , and your good buddy dealer in another dealer area has the part, Yanmar will not allow the dealer with the part to sell and ship the part to your location. That's a deal breaker for me on a new engine from Yanmar ...Well that and when Yanmar discontinues a model engine manufacturing , it drops the replacement parts as well .

[driftwooddave]

Originally Posted by Reefmagnet

Just have to face up to the facts. My poor old engine is too far gone to bring economically back from the dead. About to make a final choice between the Beta 30 or the Yanmar 3YM30-AE. The pros and cons are kind of balancing out for me, making it a toss of the coin so I'd just thought I'd throw it out there.


Which would you choose?

Hi,
Was in a similiar position a couple of years ago and fitted a craftsman marine engine which is a marinised Mitsubishi industrial engine, similiar to a Sole or Vetus.
I have never regretted my choice which was swung by proven core reliability, costs including spares plus 6 year warranty.
As a retired engineer I was allowed to carry out installation myself whilst maintaining warranty rights.
Worth a look.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by benfairn

I'd have a close look at electric. If you have panels now just add the same new engine$ value in batteries. Never a tune up. No oil, no rusting exchangers etc etc. If your a shaft, not saildrive even easier.

But need to understand that with electric you will have extremely limited range, 20-30 miles in most installations and significant recharge time unless one has a large cat with room for lots and lots of panels or plugs into shore power after motoring.

[lestersails]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I think the choice may be predicated on who is going to work on the engine, if your doing the work why not Beta, but if you have all your work done there sure are a lot of Yanmar dealers.
Parts wise, it’s a new zero time engine, how many parts do you think your going to need. Shouldn’t really need any for a decade.
I have spares for most everything onboard and knock on wood haven’t ever used a single one. In the last 5 years only Yanmar part I have used is a couple of hoses and that only because they were 30 years old, still working, but they had gotten hard.

But if you're stocking up on spares, you're buying parts right out of the gate, aren't you? I don't understand why you would say that there is no need to buy parts for a decade.

[stormalong]

Originally Posted by warrior 90

I estimate that all industrial engines in that class/size should get to 4000 hours if well maintained.

What is this 4000 hours nonsense? My 17 Y.O. Beta BV2203 already has 4500 hours on it and it runs like a fine watch. Better than the 4-108 when I bought it with 1600 hours on it. I expect this engine to outlive me.

Never failed to start but I do preheat. Starts in less than a second. The Perkins was a PITA to start in cold weather.

Never weeped oil like the Perkins.

For the first few years of ownership the oil looked like new when changed after 150 hours. Now far less dirty than the Perkins was at 1600 hours. With the Perkins five minutes after the oil change the new oil was black - not so with the Beta.

Have I done maintenance? Sure, but far less than the old Perkins.