IPS 600 5 yr service cost?

A_8

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Just a sanity check. I have quote at around €2800 for lift, wash and new shaft seals, oil and anodes. Seems a bit high to me as the shaft seals are just external meaning the drives stays on the boat so maybe max 2 hours extra per drive to change them with minimal material cost and the rest is the same as the regular annual service. The lift and wash is maybe around €400.
 
If it’s any consolation a friend was quoted €5000 for a lift , gear oil change , anodes and prop seals for his IPS 600 s .
I think that includes re antifoul of the pods only .

The std hull antifoul , Hull wax of topsides and routine D6 engine service was extra .
Total Bill was near €10 K all in all .

Approximately 24 months previous , previous owner spent €25 K on a repair due to water ingress ( VP agents in Italy ) .
boths pods dropped and one had some major innards / gears replaced .One was not so bad .

He,s sold the boat btw NOW , the recent seal change was negotiated in the buyer despite new seals 24 m ago .
sweetened the deal so to speak .
 
If it’s a scheduled service by a Volvo dealer then the price should be set in their schedule, parts and hours allotted. You can ring around but unless you use an independent mechanic I can’t see a saving. Same goes for the port that’s doing the takeout, a takeout and wash will be based on your boat size.
 
I've concluded the quote is ok ish even though I might learn how to do the shaft seals myself if I decide on an IPS boat. Its actually hard to find a nice new tidy and cool/modern non ips 45 foot boat.
 
I wouldn't change propshaft seals unless they were leaking.

Are they leaking?

once they have leaked and damage has been done the bill would be significantly higher, for that reason I would change seals to prevent any possible failure and did that with my outdrives when I had them, was good to always see clear oil removed at each oil change.
 
I know this forum is down on ips but I was talking to member Aquatom so
months ago ( vp dealer in Mallorca ) and his view having looked after them for years is they were really pretty reliable.

There are cases of big bills I don’t doubt - but the same can be said of anything mechanical and those on here tend to be self segmenting as to issues they want solved !

would I buy one ? Out of preference no as I like bigger boats and that means three if the things ( pearl 65) but if I liked the boat and liked the space it freed up then probably yes.
 
I was talking to the people running Volvo Penta's test center in Gothenburg last week and confronted them with the general IPS view on the forum. They said on the early units they had not fitted rope cutters which prematurely broke the seals on some with water getting in and another problem was servicing the units using "any" but correctly spec oil as apposed the the VP stuff that has particular additives to help protect the drives in-case of water ingress.
He pointed out that the service intervall on the IPS 1 drives is 400h with 5yrs between seal changes which seem to indicate they are inherently reliable as long as water don't get in.
 
If it’s any consolation a friend was quoted €5000 for a lift , gear oil change , anodes and prop seals for his IPS 600 s .
I think that includes re antifoul of the pods only .

The std hull antifoul , Hull wax of topsides and routine D6 engine service was extra .
Total Bill was near €10 K all in all .

Approximately 24 months previous , previous owner spent €25 K on a repair due to water ingress ( VP agents in Italy ) .
boths pods dropped and one had some major innards / gears replaced .One was not so bad .

He,s sold the boat btw NOW , the recent seal change was negotiated in the buyer despite new seals 24 m ago .
sweetened the deal so to speak .
What boat was that Porto?
 
Have had IPS for 4 years now and no issues at all. The boat overall is more important to me than shaft/ips options and would have either on the next one.

You don’t need 3 if a bigger boat. Pearl 62 has 2 but with 3 engine options. Most powerful are the 1200s. (Think they come with 950, 1050 and 1200 from memory). I think the bigger engines are a more recent thing but could be wrong
 
the first IPS Boats with the first IPS units often were too big for this gear units. I.g. Beneteau 49 is too long and heavy for two IPS 600. Go straight forward you can tow a container ship after a IPS powered boat, especially the newer ones, that´s not the problem. Problem is the maneuver in the harbors. Here comes a lot of stress to the smaller IPS Units, if the relation boat/IPS is not correct.
Of course easier and more usable with joy stick...
And than in addition perhaps with the advantage to hold the position of the boat exactly with one button...
Everybody can imagine the stress and vibration on the two units powering in the opposite direction. Fly bridge boats about 50 feet would need the next, bigger IPS unit, but than you pay much much more for a about 50 feet boat, and this would be a problem on the boat market. So many fly bridge boats around 50 were fittet with the IPS 600 and they are too small for this boats. IPS is now is a good system which will work well, if you have the right boat, IMHO.
 
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