A positive (in the end) marine company story...

[Nick2]

Some may recall that I recently had a problem with my Eberspacher heating which seemed not to fire up. This was suprising as the unit was replaced about 12 months ago by an Eberspacher main dealer.

I had taken out the extended warranty and so was not too concerned as its first service was due last week. For convenience I arranged for Krueger (not the fitting dealer I must stress) to service and look at the problem.

The engineer from Kruegers called me from my boat and asked "who on earth fitted the heater?" and was shocked when I told him that it was another dealer. The main issue seemed to be that there was no swan neck fitted to the exaust and some of the pipework was not connected as it should.

He kindly told me not to worry as he felt that the cost of refitting properly and associated repairs should really be bourne by the original fitting dealer and more than that he would contact to try to sort it for me. He stated that his extra costs to do all this beyond the service (fixed price) would be £250/£300 but was adament that I should not have to pay this.

Kruegers then refitted the unit after taking it back to dry out and test and I have to say it looks a far better job than dealer 1.

I have just got an invoice from them for just the standard service with a note saying that the other dealer has paid them for the extra work and parts.

I have never used Krueger before but have been deeply impressed by their customer care in the truest sense as well as the quality of the reinstallation.

There we are a tale to warm the cockles of my D4!

Nick

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://arweb.co.uk/argallery/Nick2>http://arweb.co.uk/argallery/Nick2</A><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by Nick2 on 04/04/2004 22:01 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[biffothebare]

Hi Nick,
Glad to hear you got sorted.
Whilst on the subject I've come across something that may interest forumites in general.
A friend of mine lent me a copy of. sshh...... Waterways World and in the letters pages
was a letter from a gentleman that was having problems with a heater unit like yours; not firing up properly, only been in a short while etc.
He was told by the UK dealer that these heaters were designed to run on diesel made to BS EN590 which is white road diesel or D.E.R.V as it is known.
Thinking there is no difference he said that he was using red diesel.
The dealer said that red is a totally different fuel and that the flash point is80'C as opposed to 55'C for D.E.R.V He then goes on to say that he tried the dealers recommendation and the heater burned easier, better and cleaner than on red.
I must say I was stunned to learn of this.

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[Nick2]

As it happens I have been sent a technical bulitin form Eberspacher which concurs with your findings. It also says and I quote "Along with the lower cetane there is always the possibilty for the presence of other contaminates which includes water and the fuel bug within the fuel itself"

It then goes on to suggest using an additive.......

Thanks for the tip and it does seem to be the case

Nick

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[boatone]

Whoa...HOLD ON........

....this is mind blowing stuff !!!!!!!

Are we saying that all these Eberspacher heaters on boats are being run on the wrong fuel and we should be providing a seperate fuel tank with 'non red' diesel?

If so I suspect there are thousands of users here and 'out there' that have no knowledge of this and were sold these units in blissful ignorance that running on red diesel was par for the course and ok !

Methinks we need a statement from Eberspacher here....can someone with influence wake em up and tell em we're waiting????

.....and maybe Mike Gates can comment on MDL diesel in this context?

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[Talbot]

Re: Whoa...HOLD ON........

The recommendation from eberspacher is surely just common sense. You only have to look at the size of the pipe and lack of decent filtering to realise that the crud that is in some diesel tanks would not be too suitable for use in the Eber. There was a period when people were recommending running the occasional glop of parrafin through the system to help it work. Personnally I filter all fuel going into my fuel tank for water and particles down to .005" using a smart funnel , and add fuel set (the only one recommended by eberspacher - although solly is supposed to be better) - and isn't it a surprise /forums/images/icons/smile.gif, I have not had any problems at all!

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[boatone]

Re: Whoa...HOLD ON........

Dont disagree with the 'cleanliness next to godliness' issue at all....that clearly does make sense.
My concern is the inferrence that their product is not designed to operate on Red Diesel as opposed to White and will suffer a performance hit if Red is used.
......its pretty obvious that most marine installations in this country at least will be using red and Ive certainly not heard this angle before!

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[[2574]]

Re: Whoa...HOLD ON........

Last I heard, smart funnels couldn't give a fast enough delivery rate to make them useable when taking on 150gallons -has this changed? How fast is your smart funnel?

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[PhilF]

Re: Whoa...HOLD ON........

He has a sailing boat, don't think the funnels do for us, I have asked before

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[Talbot]

Re: Whoa...HOLD ON........

It would take me about 5 years to use that much - I normally only get 15-20 gallons at a time! /forums/images/icons/smile.gif But yes this is a drawback of the smart funnel. The other is that you never manage to transfer all the fuel in the funnel into the tank, so I keep a gallon container to put the dregs of the funnel into, and when it has sufficient decant that into the tank via the funnel.

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[deborahann]

i have had troubles with my 2 & a half year old ebber. not firing up etc. very interesting re the diesel used, i know that this type of heating was originally designed to be used by lorry drivers for heating their cab's, naturally this would mean that they were once designed to be used with white diesel.

As i have a separate fuel for heating diesel tank i could try using white diesel, however, i also run a diesel stove (uses fuel from the same tank & looks like a solid fuel heating stove) and have no idea how that would react.

Im going to ask around, as there is nothing more annoying than (like this last weekend) your boat heating playing up, usually when its dam cold.

<hr width=100% size=1>deborah on delft (correct spelling)

 

[Alistairr]

Like you, I use a seperate tank for the heater. And i use White diesel.
But i have been recommended by Eberpacher, the cleanest fuel to use in the system is Parrafin.



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