Buying 2010 Beneteau with "unknown" engine hours

[canyonbat]

Originally Posted by ReneJK

silly question probably , but why dont you put the hobbs on the 12v for 183 hours and get rid of the difference ?

I guess we could if we had thought to take the Hobbs out when we left the boat. As it is, the boat is 1000 miles away from us and when we are back aboard we will be cruising so it would be rather a pain to be connecting, disconnecting reconnecting and keeping track. As most maintenance items are interval based, total time is rarely needed so not worth the bother.

[moseriw]

Easy:
When in Charter and depending on the Area... Med 4Months possible, 3 Months charter at 250NM/week = 3000 NM/year
Carribian 7 Month = 250 x 28 = 7000 x 2/3 = 4700NM/year

Private: 4 Weeks = 1000 NM/year max

compare with a car: (6 knots)(60km/h)
Med 3000NM 30.000kg/year
Carib 7500NM about 47.000km/year
Priv 1000NM 10.000km/year

[1paulg]

I had both my hour meters fade out progressively on me ( a Cat) to the stage they were unreadable - managed to find an instrument repair place that fixed the display and retained the hours - both working good as gold now .
What brand are they?

[RickG]

We had the same problem on our former Moorings Beneteau 40 from the BVI fleet. Those usually see about 1,000 hours per year. The bigger problem for us was the transmission from abusive shifting.

Our current boat is a Beneteau 423. The hours meter occasionally comes on and we can verify the hours. The previous owner added a Hobbs meter - love it.

If you are concerned, include an engine survey as part of your offer. Take the cost of the engine survey off the top of your offer. You'll likely get a recommendation to rebuild the injectors, replace the mixing elbow, clean the heat exchanger.... then take the off the top of your offer.

Cheers, RickG

[leftbrainstuff]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

Huh? Sounds like voodoo economics to me. My engine with 3376 hours sounds better than many with lots less hours. How coul any mechanic do this? I'm all ears, but suspect it's not possible.

Estimating engine hours is indeed voodoo. Is there a good engine log?

Perhaps you could estimate based on number of charters and apply some rules of thumb.

A good mechanic can measure cylinder pressures and a good diesel shop can test injection pump and injector flow patterns. An oil analysis will round out the analysis.

[mholtzberg]

I chartered a 2016 Jeaneau for Labor Day 2017 weekend and the owner took delivery in December 2016 and the boat had 400 hours on the engine... There was no wind that weekend and we added another 12 hours onto it...

[crankysailor]

$160K for a 2010 charter benny... looking at it from very far away ( Europe ) it seems to me that engine hours is not the number I would be most concerned about .. or what am I missing? Granted I have no clue about the US market, but still...

[alex_sauvage]

Originally Posted by crankysailor

$160K for a 2010 charter benny... looking at it from very far away ( Europe ) it seems to me that engine hours is not the number I would be most concerned about .. or what am I missing? Granted I have no clue about the US market, but still...

Prices in Europe are significantly lower than in US, probably due to Euro dropping in the last few years. There also few charter boats in US and boats in California are even more expensive due to relative remoteness from manufacturing centers

[Delafontaine]

How to repair your hour LCD meter:

If yours is the LCD type part and parcel to the tachometer, remove the gauge or just access the back of it and carefully remove every bit of the silicone that was put on at the factory.
This silicone becomes conductive over time.
Here on Cruisers forum, we have already meet this problem numerous times:

GordMay gave a detailed solution, in colour, with a nice pdf document, in post #3 - http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...7&d=1433685138