Man diesels

[Byresch]

I have read numerus threads about Man diesels costs on here. I have owned Cats and Perkins diesels with no problems, I have also own gas Merc Cruiser 350s without problems nor excessive costs. I have read the threads that claim normal maintenance on Man Diesels is out of sight. I don't have any concrete data to support this. I am of the opinion that is do maintenance on most engines they will hold up and if you don't do your maintenance any engine will fail. What separates Man Diesels from any other diesel engine in this category?

[Pascal]

A few years ago I compared service costs for Man vs Cat in the 1500hp range. The difference was big... the MANs services including 500 and 1000 hours were 2 to 3 times the cost of Cats.

I love cats. I put 4000 hours on a pair of 2003 1400hp 3412Es in 8 years. They had 5500 hours when the boat sold and passed survey and analysis with flying colors. All with routine maintenance and service. Never had to pull an injector or a turbo or a head.

Now, in the late 2000s Cat messed up the aftercooler design on the C32 and I believe the C18. On the 1650hp C32 for instance, the early aftercoolers had to be upgraded to a revised design... a $15k per engine job. Problem is that as CYA Cat now recommends replacement of the aftercooler cores every 6 years. Cheaper than the upgrade as it s just the core but still costly. Many Cat specialists though feel this is an overkill and not really necessary every 6 years.

Right now the 2009 vintage boat i run has 1650hp C32s. We have 3500 hours on them and besides the aftercooler upgrade when the boat was bought 5 years ago maintenance has been minimal. We average 400-500 hours a years. Only “surprise” was a failed ECU a couple of years ago. My Cat guy replaced it within 48 hours and it was only about $2500. I don’t even want to know what Man charges for an ECU...

[jim rosenthal]

My understanding based on what I've heard up here, from what I think are reliable sources, is that Man service franchises are local and scarce. So, for example, there is only one shop up here that does authorized Man service. The parts are said to be very expensive and the service intervals and specified items are both long lists. So just the scheduled work runs into quite a bit of money. As Pascal commented, the difference in cost is formidable. And if you break down far from home you may have trouble finding someone to service Mans.

But they have their fans. An acquaintance who owns a beautiful F&S sportfishing yacht (Espadon) has Mans and loves them. Swears by them. And that boat has a lot of hours on it and hundreds of fishing trips in charter. Interestingly, from what I recall, he originally was planning to install MTUs when the boat was building, but changed to Mans, can't recall why.

If it were me, with a boat that size, since Cummins doesn't make anything in a pleasure-craft rating that big, I'd buy Cats, too.

[racclarkson@gmail.com]

In 2014, I was very interested in a 50' Post. She had Mans that were overdue for their 1,000 service. I was impressed that the 1,000 service was $10K per side. The owner was not impressed with my request for him to have the service performed at his expense. Being the service was overdue a couple hundred hours and I couldn't negotiate the cost into the deal, I passed. An otherwise very nice boat.

[oscarvan]

MAN's are a dime a dozen, everyone knows how to work on them, and parts are everywhere.....in Europe. Same story as BMW and Benz 40 years ago..... They are good engines.

[jim rosenthal]

No doubt in a market where they are common and easy to get them worked on, they are good engines. But the best diesel marine engine is only as good as the support for it... if I were buying a different boat, or repowering a boat, I'd stick with something built here that I knew I could get serviced here.

[Briankinley2004]

Robert is spot on for the 1,000 hour service. Have a friend with some 12V's. He spent 20 grand for the two and had more issues than he went in with. Think he had to take it across the Gulf 2-3 times to the dealer (150 miles away) to finally get all the leaks and stuff fixed that happened after the service.

[dottieshusband]

I'm not a Man expert, but a friend had Man's in his boat. Each engine has 2 water (raw) pumps. The housings got excessive wear requiring the replacement. The cost was significantly greater than what a common Jabsco pump runs...


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