BetaMarine or Yanmar. Which would you choose?

[Skabeeb]

My 2 cents....

Our Ericson has a Universal M25XP that is a Kabota block. When my freshwater pump seized the local Weterbeke / Yanmar dealer wanted $600 for the parts. I called a Kabota tractor dealer and got the same part for $90.

Go with the Beta!

[MikeFergie]

Originally Posted by stormalong

Why did you need to replace your engines after just 11 years? How many hours on them?

I'm not sure how many hours are on the motors as when I bought the boat like so many other yanmar the hour lcds didn't work. I pulled them out to clean up the rust and replace parts that were rusting .

The fact is I'm going full time cruising and mainly to remote places that will be a problem to get parts if I ever need them so it just made sense to me to put in completely new ones hoping I dont have issues for the next 11 or more years. I sold them to another cat owner who will finish cleaning them up and replace his tired 3gm30s

[MikeFergie]

Originally Posted by Pendragon35

I'm not the brightest bulb in the light or an LED...what does "common rail" mean? I have a Yanmar 3gm30F

3ym30 and 3gm30 are standard fuel injection motors.

Common rail means they dont have an injection pump and use electronics to open and close the injectors. These motors are about 20 % more fuel efficient but you need the software and laptop to diagnose and set them

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by LittleWing77

P.S. Sorry Wotname, but I loathe their red colour and the green of Volvos. That cool silver of Yanmars makes my heart go pitter-pat...

I am not enamoured with the red colour either, but you can have green or any other colour you want if you ask them nicely:


https://betamarine.co.uk/portfolio-i...-25-greenline/

The inland ones are interesting because they seem to supply them with extra alternators and remote oil filter kits etc.

Pete

[Michael Cobbe]

I asked a number of marine engine repairers, in the Caribbean, which engine they had to repair least the concensus was Yanmar.

[Minggat]

Originally Posted by Michael Cobbe

I asked a number of marine engine repairers, in the Caribbean, which engine they had to repair least the concensus was Yanmar.

That would mean more If there was mention of what they did work on. There are plenty of old or poorly maintained engines out there that might keep them busy. Beta might not come up on the radar at all, where Yanmar might be all over the radar.


My current boat has an old Perkins. I would choose another one over a Yanmar. I had been looking at 2 boats, now only one. The one with the Beta. A Yanmar was one of the strikes against the other boat.

[stormalong]

Originally Posted by Pete7

I am not enamoured with the red colour either, but you can have green or any other colour you want if you ask them nicely:


https://betamarine.co.uk/portfolio-i...-25-greenline/

The inland ones are interesting because they seem to supply them with extra alternators and remote oil filter kits etc.

Pete

Remote oil filter, remote fuel filter, second alternator with poly V belt and high belt ratio are all available with Beta Marine. I have all of them.

Also had custom engine brackets made to fit my original engine stringers. This saved a huge amount of time. I did the swap myself and it was less than a week from pulling out the old engine and the new engine being ready to go. The 50 hour oil change was done on the way to Norway from England.

And it was painted Kubota blue!

[LittleWing77]

Originally Posted by Pendragon35

I'm not the brightest bulb in the light or an LED...what does "common rail" mean? I have a Yanmar 3gm30F

I'm not either, Pendragon. I was just fortunate to get to do a day-long workshop with Nigel Calder (!!!) "Maintaining and Troubleshooting Your Diesel Engine" at last year's Toronto Boat Show.

Common rail is the new precision fuel injection method you can read about here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_rail

But what it comes down to (to my mind) is, it's a comparable version of what car manufacturers have done by putting computers into the world's cars: You can no longer work on your own car, you have to take it to the dealership or the warranty is void. (Not that I'm particularly concerned with warranties - which I think are their own version of a crock.)

Common rail does have benefits (quieter engines and better fuel efficiency) but, overwhelmingly, if the facility of my engine being a relatively simple and straightforward diesel (like a Beta) that I can fix myself when I'm stalled in Vanuatu... I'm out. (Betas don't have common rail - the new Volvos and Yanmars do.)

The whole reason I sail is I want to be connected to the wind and the sea and the sky and have a hands-on relationship with my boat and all of its contributing components.

Okay, that's my venting for today!

Fair, fair winds,
LittleWing77

[RaymondR]

Yanmar make a good engine but so do a number of other Japanese manufacturers.

The killer with Yanmar is the cost of spares.

I wanted to replace my 3 GM30s water pump">raw water pump and was quoted Australian $800 or so for a new one. I climbed up off the floor of the chandlery,went home and pondered for a couple of days then went back with the impeller and found from the catalog a standard footed impeller pump for about A$240, ordered one and made a new bracket out of a scrap of alloy angle. Saved about five hundred and fifty bucks.

Good little motor but I hated the screwing I got every time I went to buy parts.

[CarinaPDX]

Originally Posted by LittleWing77

(Betas don't have common rail - the new Volvos and Yanmars do.

This is not true for the Volvos, or at least all of them. My Volvo D2-40F is a traditional system with a 4-piston injection pump. Because it has a black box with digital instruments and push-button starting it is often assumed otherwise but that is not the case. The one problem they have had is that the black box is unreliable, but it is not needed to run the engine. A short between 12V and the starter solenoid will start the engine, and after that it will run happily. Shutdown must be done by a small lever on the engine's fuel cutoff solenoid if the electronics are off. Of course there would be no instruments or alarms but it will get you home. I'm not particularly keen on an engine that needs its electronics to work, especially when it is mounted on a hot and vibrating engine. Hint to V-P owners: move the damn box off of the engine!

BTW I checked this for the 75hp and down. However, I also note that the D2-40F is no longer on the V-P site. Anyone know what gives?

Greg

[kmacdonald]

Looks like Beta wins in the repower category. You dont see them on new boats and that may be because they cant meet current emission standards. For repowers they need to meet emission standards in effect when the boat was built.
Beta blue is the only color I would consider.

[stormalong]

Originally Posted by kmacdonald

Looks like Beta wins in the repower category. You dont see them on new boats and that may be because they cant meet current emission standards. For repowers they need to meet emission standards in effect when the boat was built.
Beta blue is the only color I would consider.

Don't know about current emissions regs but in 2003 my Beta came with a letter certifying that the engine met California emission standards. Funny thing was that I took delivery of the engine in England.

Do Kubota tractors meet current regs?

[bstreep]

Based upon parts prices along, and Yanmar's stupid sales territory policy, I'd go with Beta. If I have to replace ours, it WILL be a Beta. Yanmar gives their engines away (ok, not gives them away - discounts them) and makes it up on parts. In order to discourage parts swapping, they change their part numbers about once a year. I hate dealing with it. A $250 turbocharger is $2200.

[Captain Puget]

New boat manufacturers often get "backend payments" from engine manufacturers to use their engines .... Beta does not play that game.

[CarinaPDX]

Originally Posted by kmacdonald

You dont see them on new boats and that may be because they cant meet current emission standards. For repowers they need to meet emission standards in effect when the boat was built.

While it may be true that a boat doesn't need an engine with newer specs than at the time of boat construction, it is not true that the engines being sold today do not meet current standards, at least in the U.S. . In fact, V-P got themselves in trouble because the first of the D2-40F engines shipped into the U.S. about 10 years ago didn't meet the current specs and V-P consented to replace (free) any of those engines for owners who cared - I didn't see throwing away a new engine was needed, and the agreement was that the non-compliant engines would be destroyed and not resold anywhere, so I kept mine (the program has expired now). It was caused by a misunderstanding of the applicable start date for the new standards (IIRC manufacturing date vs. import date).

Greg