Aftermarket Impellers

LONG_KEELER

LONG_KEELER

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I can buy an impeller online for about £6.50 each which must be from the Far East . The main agent price is around £20 which I guess are Mariner or Jabsco .

Just wondering if there is much difference. I'm tempted to just pay the higher price for peace of mind.

Any thoughts on quality ?
 
MoodySabre said:
The saving against the total sailing budget is irrelevant. Don’t save money on a crucial item.
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This +1. I remember a long time ago when I was working as a marine engineer a customer of ours had serious problems with a problematic Yanmar that eventually turned out to be related to non-brand impellers that spun the drive insert in the rubber impeller body. Took us ages to find the issue, since then i've always bought the main brand ones - at least they have a warranty in case of an issue.
 
The annoying thing is that the identical item is almost certainly available cheaply without the branded box, it’s just that there’s no easy way of knowing which ones came off the same line and which are poorer-quality copies.

I’ve just reluctantly forked out for two small boxes with Volvo logos that cost more than the half dozen filters and ten litres of oil.

Pete
 
Moodysailor said:
This +1. I remember a long time ago when I was working as a marine engineer a customer of ours had serious problems with a problematic Yanmar that eventually turned out to be related to non-brand impellers that spun the drive insert in the rubber impeller body. Took us ages to find the issue, since then i've always bought the main brand ones - at least they have a warranty in case of an issue.
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We had two genuine Yanmar 1GM 10 impellers fail in just that way.

Dont hold your breath on warranty on items like that from Yanmar either - the dealer we used was not at all responsive to replacing the second defective one.
 
FWIW, about 99% of the raw water pumps used by main engine manufacturers are produced by Jabsco or Johnson.

It isn't necessary to buy the engine manufacturers version unless there is some good reason (i.e some VP kits give you spare SS hex head backplate screws in their service kits, whereas the Johnson version comes with brass slot head). As long as you can cross-reference the correct Jabsco/Johnson version, these could save you some money over main dealer prices.

I recently bought a nitrile impeller for our engine driven emergency bilge pump. Genuine Jabsco item for £37 which for a nitrile (oil resistant) impeller is not bad - in the grand scheme of boating costs.....
 
Moodysailor said:
eventually turned out to be related to non-brand impellers that spun the drive insert in the rubber impeller body. Took us ages to find the issue
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Oh good I'm not the only one who has had that problem. Took about 5mins to diagnose, perhaps just being off Dodman Point focused the mind.
 
LONG_KEELER said:
I can buy an impeller online for about £6.50 each which must be from the Far East . The main agent price is around £20 which I guess are Mariner or Jabsco .

Just wondering if there is much difference. I'm tempted to just pay the higher price for peace of mind.

Any thoughts on quality ?
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I apply the alternative spend test: what will i get otherwise from the savings? If the answer looks like a ham sandwich - nice but not so critical - time to stick with original gear. The cheapo will keep circulating water even if a blade falls off, but extracting the bits from the heat exchanger won't deliver the same joy as a sandwich!

PWG
 
Sandy said:
Oh good I'm not the only one who has had that problem. Took about 5mins to diagnose, perhaps just being off Dodman Point focused the mind.
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Haha, nothing like a bit of pressure to focus the mind.....

I've heard of the issues with the smaller Johnson impellers with the smooth sleeve and a pin that connects the rubber and acts as the drive - these would fail far too frequently. One of our engineers would knock the pin out of a brand new impeller and replace it with a longer bolt and nylock nut - he never had issues after that.....

The ones I had the problems with were the larger ones - you couldn't see the issues and could not replicate it by hand, really frustrating. It would spin under load when at high rpm. I was a young engineer at the time and have learnt over the years not to trust when someone told me they have recently fitted something "new" or "good", but I suppose that was all part of the learning curve...
 
LONG_KEELER said:
I can buy an impeller online for about £6.50 each which must be from the Far East . The main agent price is around £20 which I guess are Mariner or Jabsco .

Just wondering if there is much difference. I'm tempted to just pay the higher price for peace of mind.

Any thoughts on quality ?
Click to expand...
The chances are that the one in the branded box comes from the same Chinese factory as the eBay cheapie.
 
There's no definitive answer to this in my mind. There's no point in buying inferior product. But then there's no need to buy branded either. In many cases the brand company don't make the product. Volvo is a good example. They don't make oil, filters, belts, impellors... so buying Volvo in any of these, all you're doing is using their expertise to identify a good one. If you can also identify quality, then...

I bought two small electric motor linear actuators last year. One a branded, one direct from a Chinese manufacturer. Turned out to be identical, but actually made in the same Chinese factory, but one cost half the price of the other!
 
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