Average cost to service an outdrive?

jimmy_the_builder said:
Which main agent do you use in SoF, out of interest?

Cheers
Jimmy
Click to expand...
These
V nice people family firm ( actually not French )

A guy called Franc does mine .Loo is through the shed and you can pop in ,walk past and see em all in bits .while you antifoul/ polish Change flap anodes bow thruster anode etc .
They stock all the parts and bits .You create an account and as the week progresses get all the stuff from them ( stores) to do annual maintenance .when you come to settle your A/C they miss stuff off .


http://www.ariedeboom.com/YachtyardsService/PortdeLaRague.aspx
 
wipe_out said:
haha.. That sign would be a pretty clear indicator that they should be changed.. Was thinking something a little earlier than that.. :)
Click to expand...

If the UJ bellows has a substantial split, and you tilt the drive up whilst the boat is in the water, water will come in.
Less dramatically, a small hole just means your UJ sits in water, the spider bearings go rusty, starts to vibrate after some months, then a few kilos of unbalanced metal spinning at 3500 rpm makes a bid for the sky via your bathing platform. And then you sink.

Testing that the rubber is still nice and supple, and not damaged by barnacles or other nasties is an intermediate step.
But all things considered, best to change every 2nd season anyway.

.
 
Last edited:
Portofino said:
These
V nice people family firm ( actually not French )

A guy called Franc does mine .Loo is through the shed and you can pop in ,walk past and see em all in bits .while you antifoul/ polish Change flap anodes bow thruster anode etc .
They stock all the parts and bits .You create an account and as the week progresses get all the stuff from them ( stores) to do annual maintenance .when you come to settle your A/C they miss stuff off .


http://www.ariedeboom.com/YachtyardsService/PortdeLaRague.aspx
Click to expand...

Thanks L, I know arie de boom, that's where I had the boat launched when I first arrived in France.

Cheers
Jimmy
 
oGaryo said:
clips every season for sure imo Jimmy.. the only issues I've had with leakage into UJ's and fortunately into a wet system exhaust bellow last year were due to corroded clips letting go midway through the season.
Click to expand...

What's this about replacing the stainless clips every year? On my 2004 DPS/ ( SX-MHP transom shield) the UJ and exhaust bellow clips are electrically connected to the drive / anodes by cables. OK, when I fit new bellows ( evey 2-3 years) they come with new clips, so I use them. The old ones show no sign of deterioration. In fact, the water inlet hose on the normally unseen side of the tilt housing has a stainless jubilee clip on it, not connected to the drive/ anodes and it's still fine after 9 six month seasons immersion in salt water.
 
GrahamHR said:
What's this about replacing the stainless clips every year? On my 2004 DPS/ ( SX-MHP transom shield) the UJ and exhaust bellow clips are electrically connected to the drive / anodes by cables. OK, when I fit new bellows ( evey 2-3 years) they come with new clips, so I use them. The old ones show no sign of deterioration. In fact, the water inlet hose on the normally unseen side of the tilt housing has a stainless jubilee clip on it, not connected to the drive/ anodes and it's still fine after 9 six month seasons immersion in salt water.
Click to expand...

not so with mine Graham, DPE drives and haven't seen any bonding direct to the clips on any of them.
 
oGaryo said:
not so with mine Graham, DPE drives and haven't seen any bonding direct to the clips on any of them.
Click to expand...
Gary, it's a simple thing to fit and it works well. Thinking back to a 1999 DPS drive I had, I made up a few more bonding cables and it worked well ( made up from some stainless rigging cable and offcuts from old stainless jubilee clips)

What does work REALLY well though is the VP active corrosion protection unit. it extends the active life of anodes by a considerable margin ( the transom anodes last at least three 6 month seasons on my boat). You missed a bargain last week when one went for about £102 on Ebay !
 
Last edited:
GrahamHR said:
Gary, it's a simple thing to fit and it works well. Thinking back to a 1999 DPS drive I had, I made up a few more bonding cables and it worked well ( made up from some stainless rigging cable and offcuts from old stainless jubilee clips)

What does work REALLY well though is the VP active corrosion provention unit. it extends the active life of anodes by a considerable margin ( the transom anodes last at least three 6 month seasons on my boat). You missed a bargain last week when one went for about £102 on Ebay !
Click to expand...


thanks again Graham, I'll have a look into the bonding aspect but the boat already has the active corrosion protection system fitted although without the bonding in place to the clips, I suspect it'll be providing zero protection for them
 
DAKA said:
It wasnt meant as a troll Jimmy, bit of light humour thats all but if the forum wants honesty they need to really think about this one.

Apart from geoffs who will be along in a minute to say outdrives are fine (as long as you dont get them wet), there are real costs that need to be taken into account.

Two boats from down our pontoon both outdrive boats are both out the water right now with repair bills for over £10k each (technically not service bills but come one ) they get the same every 3-4 years with several months of the season written off.

Volvo recon legs can be bought for £5000

Dont bother servicing them, buy recon from volvo every two years, sell the old unserviced legs on ebay in July when they are like rocking horse ****, easily make £3000 and you end up with a reliable boat :encouragement:
Click to expand...

So, Pete, just to understand why you're painting this picture of doom for the OP, how many outdrive boats have you owned over, say, the past 10 years?

Cheers
Jimmy
 
Some real figures. Not ones made up by those with shafts who can only dream of the versatility, economy and performance of legs.

My 290's are 12 years old and 1100 hours. UJ and exhaust bellows changed every other year along with the oil. parts just over £200 for the pair, Labour average £180 for the pair. Plus £80 for a two set of anodes including button anodes for the trim tabs.

This season I had a full service on the legs, all seals changed along with the normal service = £880 including parts and labour + £80 for anodes.

Average yearly costs taken over my 12 year ownership is £270 per year including anodes for both legs. Or £135 per leg per year.

These are my REAL costs, not made up.
 
DAKA said:
My first outdrive boat was a petrol Bayliner , Alpha 1 leg

@ about 5 years old 100 hours I had it serviced and we went to Paris

This exceeded the annual service hours slightly and on the way back @ Nab tower the lower gears where shredded, no impact just knackered.

Fairline Cornich twin Volvo Penta 290 DP

did loads of miles 1500- 2000nm year,for several years , great boat BUT

I kept it in fresh water
only went into salt water for holidays, that one made it to Paris AND BACK !

However when we started to spend longer in France CI and south coast we started getting problems

One bill £5000
one bill £1500

not all expensive repairs but I kept getting petty issues which I nipped in the bud however cruises were getting delayed as we needed lift outs enroute.




I sold the boat and bought shafts so we could stay in salt water .


It would be wrong of me to identify individual boats and problems I know about but I am thinking about boats that have have full professional regular services that have had outdrive issues.

Its not doom and gloom, if you read my latest post you will see I have a solution which isnt so expensive.

Think about it

option 1
service leg every year £1000 x 10 years
3 x £5 000 'unscheduled' repairs in 10 years
total £25 000 loads of wrecked weekends/holidays

option 2

no service.
every 2 years buy factory recon leg £5000
sell old leg on ebay every 2 years £3000
no 'one off ' repairs
total £20 000
no wrecked weekends
no wrecked holidays
no wasted marina fees


I havent spent a lot of time on the figures jimmy, I accept there will be errors but I hope you can understand where I am coming from, just a thought.................. it doesnt really matter to me if the sports boats want to spend next season on the hard or not, frees up Yarmouth BH weekend :cool:
Click to expand...

Well, just as counterbalance to your barmy logic, over the past 15 years I've owned five boats, four of which have been outdrives. I sold the shaft boat because it was so dull to drive (and I wasn't ready to start buying cardigans).

Over that time, I've only really had one terminal drive problem, which coincidentally was also an alpha 1 leg, but in the end it turned out to have been a dodgy rebuild by the prev owner that was the root cause of the problem. Still, to completely replace that leg only cost £1500 (and took a whole three days out of my season). Second boat had a Merc B3 leg; no issues at all. Third was a Targa 37 with (I think) DP-E outdrives; again, no issues at all. Current boat is a Targa 40, and I concede I've had issues that are common to early DP-H outdrives - but the only one that actually stopped me from going anywhere was a gear selector issue which happened, funnily enough, in Yarmouth. That also cost about £1500 to fix, although in my own defence that does include some additional work that I added in while the boat was out of the water. Although I've had the usual steering ram/hoses issues on the legs, these have been covered by Volvo.

So your 'unscheduled repair' numbers, from my own first-hand experience, are just pure fiction. I've also done plenty of miles in my boats, the current T40 has been along to the Solent countless times; has done Brighton-Dartmouth in one hit quite happily; has crossed the channel a few times; has done CI's-Brighton direct, and most recently Antibes-Corsica and back, over a three day trip. I like the performance of the outdrives, and I'm pretty sure my ownership of them hasn't cost me any wrecked weekends, wrecked holidays, or wasted marina fees - the only thing that has done that has been the British weather.

Cheers
Jimmy
 
DAKA said:
option 1
service leg every year £1000 x 10 years
3 x £5 000 'unscheduled' repairs in 10 years
total £25 000 loads of wrecked weekends/holidays
Click to expand...

I really have no idea where you get the idea that a drive service costs £1000 per year, yet everyone on this thread that has a boat with drives has said their typical service costs is ~£200 rising to ~£500 every couple of years if the bellows need replacement. If you were really being charged £1000 per year per drive to service your drives then you were being ripped off.

I wrote a huge post about how your experience is the exception not the rule, about how my own experience of 30 years of outdrive boats does not tally with yours, about how propulsion choice is about choosing the right compromises for you, about the fact that there is no wrong and no right answer, and then about the fact that you come on every outdrive thread and simply rubbish every outdrive boat as if they will all cost their owner thousands every year without exception.

But then I thought better of it and remembered that arguing on the internet is pointless.
 
No offence intended to Daka or anyone else but the whole shaft drive vs stern drive debate is quite frankly ridiculous.. Small boats don't have shafts and really big boats don't have drives and there is a crossover in the middle with pro's and con's to each, benefits and compromises..

Cost is a difficult factor to argue because being boats we are all being screwed on excessive costs relative to the job to pay for our hobby.. As an example not drive related I have been quoted £450 for a basic service my petrol V8, if it was in a car and taken to a garage it would probably cost £100 but because it's in a boat it's over 4x the price.. So I will do my own services because that's the beauty of the V8, its super easy to service.. Same argument goes for drives, electronics or anything else boat related.. The prices are massively inflated..

Really it's like arguing Helecopter vs Plane or Car vs Bus.. Actually no.. It's probably more like arguing white bread vs brown bread.. ;)
 
wipe_out said:
No offence intended to Daka or anyone else but the whole shaft drive vs stern drive debate is quite frankly ridiculous.. Small boats don't have shafts and really big boats don't have drives and there is a crossover in the middle with pro's and con's to each, benefits and compromises..

Cost is a difficult factor to argue because being boats we are all being screwed on excessive costs relative to the job to pay for our hobby.. As an example not drive related I have been quoted £450 for a basic service my petrol V8, if it was in a car and taken to a garage it would probably cost £100 but because it's in a boat it's over 4x the price.. So I will do my own services because that's the beauty of the V8, its super easy to service.. Same argument goes for drives, electronics or anything else boat related.. The prices are massively inflated..

Really it's like arguing Helecopter vs Plane or Car vs Bus.. Actually no.. It's probably more like arguing white bread vs brown bread.. ;)
Click to expand...

Well said that Man...
We're all boaters at the end of the day :)
 
wipe_out said:
No offence intended to Daka or anyone else but the whole shaft drive vs stern drive debate is quite frankly ridiculous.. Small boats don't have shafts and really big boats don't have drives and there is a crossover in the middle with pro's and con's to each, benefits and compromises..

Cost is a difficult factor to argue because being boats we are all being screwed on excessive costs relative to the job to pay for our hobby.. As an example not drive related I have been quoted £450 for a basic service my petrol V8, if it was in a car and taken to a garage it would probably cost £100 but because it's in a boat it's over 4x the price.. So I will do my own services because that's the beauty of the V8, its super easy to service.. Same argument goes for drives, electronics or anything else boat related.. The prices are massively inflated..

Really it's like arguing Helecopter vs Plane or Car vs Bus.. Actually no.. It's probably more like arguing white bread vs brown bread.. ;)
Click to expand...
Yup well said that man ,piontless ( from a well happy VP outdrive owner)
This is my first MoBo and it came with em - had no chiose ,just trusted VP
Also significant fuel savings -buts that's a taboo subject these days with shafts € or £ up in smoke :(
 
One thing to be aware of is the ridiculous inflated costs of outdrive parts and anodes in the UK. I saved about 60% buying in the US. I paid about $120 US for 2 sets of mag anodes for my old Alfa 1's. My techie charged £35 per hour, so my outdrive costs were about £800 for 2 drives every 2 years, and they were 100% reliable.
 
rafiki_ said:
One thing to be aware of is the ridiculous inflated costs of outdrive parts and anodes in the UK. I saved about 60% buying in the US. I paid about $120 US for 2 sets of mag anodes for my old Alfa 1's. My techie charged £35 per hour, so my outdrive costs were about £800 for 2 drives every 2 years, and they were 100% reliable.
Click to expand...

Now there is useful information.. :)
 
I've found the same regarding the US - it's very often cheaper to buy, pay shipping for 4000 miles, duty and VAT than it is to get in the UK! Outboard parts are the same - a rectifier pack for a 30hp Evinrude was £19 inclusive - I was quoted £80 plus postage and VAT in the UK! The only downside is if you are in a hurry and it can take a week or more so for service items, keep one of each in stock!
 
Pulled my sx-a drive this year for bellows and oil change etc, not hard to do at all.
All the bellows were approx 70 pounds, fiddly bloody jubilee clips to mess with, not hard just confined space with bonding leads between them all
Oil 75/90 syn trans oil 3 litres iirc
And er thats it really
I think the sx leg doesnt even need to be removed for bellows change, you take the top of it off.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top