Yanmar Smoking and Making Oil

[Highlander40]

The trick, and impossible for Terry in strange "waters" is to have a trust- worthy yard and mechanic. Then its just a matter of getting parts from Yanmar and NOT support.

[Chief Engineer]

Just send them am e-mail with this linked

Send it to every e-mail address they have

or post the e-maill addresses here and we can contact them

[gettinthere]

anybody here read/write Japanese?
there is a contact for the Japanese home office, they need to be informed of the dishonor their US distributor is bringing upon them

[Stillraining]

Originally Posted by Tspringer

I have made the effort to contact Yanmar directly twice. Both times I sent a very detailed message. I have heard exactly nothing back. Nada.

I really hope this engine gives great service but I cannot see myself ever going with another Yanmar. Regardless of how great the engine itself may be, the companies support network and services are a disaster. You are rolling the dice and nobody at headquarters cares.



Terry

Terry again sorry you had such an ordeal.

Next time if you can swing it...here is the way to go.

PowerTech 4045 Marine Engine

[sigmasailor]

Terry,

For what it's worth: I just sent the Dutch office of Yanmar a link to all your ordeals. If we all do this maybe someone wakes up?

Eric

[never monday]

Originally Posted by Highlander40

The trick, and impossible for Terry in strange "waters" is to have a trust- worthy yard and mechanic. Then its just a matter of getting parts from Yanmar and NOT support.

and a brand he supports.

TS,
sorry for the troubles.

[r.furborough]

Unfortunately, your complaints may fall on deaf ears. Japanese business culture is to always have an intermediary. If dealing with a company in Japan, you always deal with their agent, this may be the case here.

Thank you for sharing your odyssey with us and now the troubles are behind I wish you many hours of trouble-free running...

[Tspringer]

I wanted to follow up to this thread and horrible ordeal for us it represented.

In the end.... these engine issues were a big factor in the death of our cruising dreams. We ended up calling it quits in July/August of 2010. Medical problems with my wife were another major issue. Looking back on it all now, "Cruising" was overall one of the worst and most financially crushing experiences of my life.

I sold Lillie Mae in January of this year. The new owner and his family crossed the Atlantic recently, I have kept in touch closely with them.

Guess what? The Yanmar engine is now throwing out grey smoke, burning oil at a good clip and depositing tons of nasty dark soot on the transom.

Yup.... this being the exact same brand new Yanmar installed 15 months ago.

Warranty is supposed to be 24 months or 2000 hours minimum. I would love to post a poll and take odds on whether or not Yanmar comes through on fixing this. My guess? They will do everything possible to avoid any responsibility or make good on any claim.

One thing for sure, the new owner is going to have a heck of a hard time getting warranty work done in Europe for an engine sold and installed in the States. But we shall see.

I would STRONGLY urge anyone either looking at boats with a Yanmar installed or considering a repower..... JUST SAY NO.


Terry

[Vasco]

I just read this whole thread from start to finish. I missed it when it was first started last year. A big thank you to Terry for sharing his ordeal with us. It hurt just reading it so I can only imagine how Terry felt. No happy ending here. Very sorry to hear that your cruising plans ended the way they did.

When you are cruising and have engine problems you are sometimes at the mercy of the nearest mechanic. You don't have a car, everyone is a stranger and there is a sense or urgency which is very difficult to put aside. I think this thread has taught me to take a step back and review everything before getting in too deep. I only hope I can remember that.

[zeehag]

sorry you had such a bad time with your yannie--i LOVE mine and the yannie rep and dealer/distributor-- they do good work and the engines are excellent. mebbe you willbe surprised and find the yannie folks do follow up on their stuff......

[gonesail]

wow what a sad and nasty experience !! i think you are correct in that you should have turned around when your engine started smoking and headed back to the dock to sort things out. from what i gather .. cruisers should not be on schedules .. even though our life experiences usually teach us otherwise.

[sww914]

Thanks for taking the time to fill us in on what happened, I had wondered. I'm so sorry that it turned out this way. I've had a few major (un-self inflicted) shitstorms in my life and often, not always but often, things turned out better after the change. I can only hope that this door slamming in your face blows another one open to somewhere good.

Some of the majors were of course self inflicted. I'm a life scientist, you see, and I was just testing the universe.

[bstreep]

Terry,

Thanks for the update. I too have had my share of experiences with Yanmar - although at a fraction of yours. Their entire distribution/dealer system is a joke - all to protect their BAD dealers. I had to order parts from their Louisiana Distributor recently. They had to drop ship parts from the manufacturer, because they weren't in stock. I ask you - how does a DISTRIBUTOR not carry impellers and gaskets?

[blueknight]

Lots of leasons learned from this post. Good luck to you and family Terry.
I have a Yanmar 4JH3-HTE with 9,000 hrs. Decided it was time to overhaul.
I took the engine apart and found cylinder bores on outer limit of the specified tolerance. That explains the blue smoke. Besides smoke, engine always worked fine, started easy at turn of key, had power up the rpm range.Turbo was packed with carbon. It is a new turbo: 300 hrs. Will clean and fine tune at turbo lab with great care, remembering Terry´s experience.
Solution is reboring and going with oversize pistons but (no surprise) my Ft Lauderdale provider says, (after asking Mastry), there are no oversize pistons-rings for turbo engines, only for non-turbo engines.
So I guess I will have to go with liners and keeping my std. pistons (which came out looking ok) with new std rings. Problem is my Yanmar Service Manual says this engine in not overhauled with liners, but reboring and using oversize pistons.
Anybody out there feels I should not put liners and go the repowered way instead ?

Regards,

Manuel

[sww914]

If you're getting advice from an extremely experienced, honest Yanmar tech, then I'd defer to him.
This particular thread isn't really about what you're looking for as far as advice goes. You'd be best served if you started your own thread.