JCB Marine Diesel Engines

boat193 said:
Hi All

Has anyone had any experience of these engines, (J444 TCAE) i think they are part of Mermaid marine, but I am not sure what make the base engine is, anyone know!!
See link below

www.mermaid-marine.co.uk/marine-diesel-engines/jcb-marine-diesel-engines
Click to expand...

It is JCB's own engine designated Dieselmax 444 designed and developed by Ricardo to replace Perkins in CX backhoe loaders well as other products in this power node.

Heavy for power output but works fine in commercial applications.

Mermaid is now just division of Power Torque Engineering, nothing like the way they were.
 
Latestarter1 said:
It is JCB's own engine designated Dieselmax 444 designed and developed by Ricardo to replace Perkins in CX backhoe loaders well as other products in this power node.

Heavy for power output but works fine in commercial applications.

Mermaid is now just division of Power Torque Engineering, nothing like the way they were.
Click to expand...

Latestarter1, You are correct it is based on JCB's acclaimed Dieselmax engine. Very new to our range on the marine side, but industrially very hard wearing and relaible so we have no reason to suspect otherwise in the marine environment. It is an electronic common rail engine and the power rating is good for commercial duty so is not as highly stressed as similar engine with leisure ratings.

In response to both yourself and Maverick, I'd be very interested to hear your comments on why 'New Mermaid' is not like it used to be and where we are not meeting your expectations as customers. We do value all opinion - good or bad as it helps us to move forward and keep marine engine manufacture here in the UK.

If yopu don't want to air your grievances in public here then please feel free to E-Mail me or call me to discuss.

Best regards
Jon Townley
Sales Director
Power Torque Engineering Ltd
j.townley@powertorque.co.uk
 
Latestarter, you're right it is JCB's own design and developed in conjunction with Ricardo.
Mainly a commercial engine, but has been used in displacement leisure applications.
The TCA-E engine is common rail electronic rated at 160hp which is applicable for commercial duty aswell.

If you need to know more, just ask.

To Latestarter & Maverick I'd really like to know why you feel New Mermaid is not the company it used to be. I take all feedback seriously (good or bad) and value your comments.
PM me if you like.

Thanks
Jon Townley
Sales Director
Power Torque Engineering
 
Mermaid-Jon said:
Latestarter, you're right it is JCB's own design and developed in conjunction with Ricardo.
Mainly a commercial engine, but has been used in displacement leisure applications.
The TCA-E engine is common rail electronic rated at 160hp which is applicable for commercial duty aswell.

If you need to know more, just ask.



To Latestarter & Maverick I'd really like to know why you feel New Mermaid is not the company it used to be. I take all feedback seriously (good or bad) and value your comments.
PM me if you like.

Thanks
Jon Townley
Sales Director
Power Torque Engineering
Click to expand...


Jon,

Sorry this slipped under the radar.

Mermaid was Cyril Snare, Cyril Snare was Mermaid, and sadly you cannot alter that. The major difference is that sales enquiries were handled in an instant.

Another difference is that Mermaid was focussed they took Ford industrial base units, made performance changes; marinsed the engines then dyno tested them. Mermaid were great parts and advice point for Ford based marine engines For many years Cyril was the hidden back up for Sabre when they got out of the Ford business. Your old location had dyno testing facilities and real hands on people. Whilst I realise there was no money in it that has all gone now. Mermaid with small exception just a 'flog em a box' agent for mix of different engine manufacturers with no interest in customisation.

I know the JCB Dieselmax real well and was not aware that I was in any way negative about the marine version. You say 'very new in our range' Cyril was selling his marinisation of the Diselmax before Power Torque Engineering took Mermaid over, must be close to ten years now??

Your comment 'helps us to move forward and keep marine engine manufacture here in the UK'. Come on Jon:

AGGCO (Sisu) Brilliant engine, made in 100% in Finland.

Your small engine range badged as Mermaid cloned Japanese engine built in China, please do not draw me on that one. Assume painted in UK no longer that vile purple.

IVECO FPT, no prizes for that one.

JCB Dieselmax built in the UK, assume now marinised by Power Torque Engineering in Midlands.

Mermaid was agents for Steyr and Beta marine and lost both those franchises.

Engines which go into boats are a long term deal, the wrong engine will blight the resale value of any vessel, and recent posts regarding availability of Ford Sabre parts are case in point.

I fail to see how multi franchise 'flog em a box' is a good business model for the long term.

Specifics, I wanted price and availability on pair of NEF 6.7 150's late December for Detroit 4-53 repower. Yes Mermaid have pair in stock we can do super deal on those, man who can give you a quotation is not here at the moment................Still waiting.
 
I am not a technical person so can't comment as Latestarter has I can only comment on the service I have received relating to my Steyr Diesel from Mermaid's old and new owners. I also belong to one of the largest boat angling clubs on the south coast having over 220 members with around 108 boats and have heard recent feedback from another member although that is not a first hand experience from me it is still relevant to your business.

My experience with the old Mermaid (Cyril Owned) was pretty much a good experience. I had major problems with my Steyr engine and although it never got sorted I did feel that the then Mermaid Marine were honest and did the best that could be expected. Mermaid of old did what they said they would when they said they would. I ended up renewing my original Steyr engine for a new Steyr unit at reasonable cost compared to other brands. Every time I needed back up, service, advice or parts Cyril & co were first class. Even to the point that when I had a problem with the alternator Cyril agreed to replace foc even though they had by now lost the Steyr franchise.

When Cyril retired and the business moved to Poole I thought this would be better for me as more local and nearer my boat. The first year they were in Poole was great, phoned them to service my engine and even though they had lost the franchise for Steyr they still carried out the works as before. Last year I phoned for a quote for service and was told someone would phone me back this happened on 3 occasions. In the end I got fed up and asked Mitchell Power Systems to come down from Romsey to carry out the works. Mitchell Power Systems were great but very expensive and even more so because of the travelling involved.

Now I don't mind not receiving service from a company as there are others out there. I can understand if they have lost a franchise that they may not wish to support that brand however the common courtesy of a phone call saying that would be appreciated instead of my having to make fruitless phone calls and wasted weeks. Apart from customer service I have no other complaints about Mermaid but for me with customer service issues it is not the business it used to be.

I can if you like direct you to a thread on another forum with an irate customer. His problems with Mermaid relate to more technical and competence issues. I don't know that fellow but if your interested I could get his contact details
 
Thanks both Latestarter and Maverick for your replies - perhaps a bit more explanation is required.

Old Mermaid, as I call it, was a very successful company run superbly by Cyril (and Barbara) for about 40 years. As you know the mainstay of the business for the duration of that tenure was the marinisation of the Dagehambuilt Ford Dorset and Dover engines. Following the demise of the Ford Dover in 1992 there was still some marinisation carried out using the Otosan Dover from Turkey and the Basildon built New Holland Genesis engines for a few years and then they took on the JCB in 2005 (one of the earliest users of the JCB Dieselmax engine). Besides that marinisation business, they also took on the fanchise for Steyr Motors and following the loss of that they had FNM briefly. By this time they also had the FPT range.
We were invited by Cyril to purchase the business in 2009 and completed the transaction in 2010. As I understand it, Cyril came to us because he knew that as a family run company we would have a similar drive to him in order to take the business forward. The difficulty we faced is that we bought a business that only had the JCB, FPT and FNM ranges at the time and only the JCB is a Mermaid marinised product. We had a number of difficulties to overcome, but there is no quick fix so in order to bolster the product line and generate some money we have added a number of products -some successful and some not. We have also had to take the difficult decision to drop some product lines aswell - never an easy call, but if something is loss making then we have to take action.
I do appreciate that there has also been some turmoil with staff changes and unfortunately we also had some long term health problems with the staff that we had which all add up to at least some of ther poor service and response times that perhaps people have suffered from.
Now, let's hope you see this as the good news part - we are moving forward and we are one of the last remaining UK marinisers of diesel engines (most are bought in from large factory operations such as VP, FPT, Vetus etc). The JCB 'range' consisted of just 2 models when we took over and had some quality issues with the marinisation components. We have addressed these quality concerns and we have increased the range to 4 models now with the most recent addition of the TCA-E 160hp engine. We will continue to develop this engine and make improvements where we can - this is truly a UK engine as we source all parts to build it from UK companies (notwithstanding that some of those components will inevitably be sourced abroad - we source from UK companies). We are also continuously looking to be able to bring other Mermaid marinised products to the market, but it comes down to cost. If we can do it and be competitive then we will. Watch this space.
I take on board some of your comments about the ranges we offer, but we have our reasons and are trying to provide a good product and service to the market.
The team at Mermaid in Poole is now well established and I'm sure that any experience you have of dealing with them over the past 6 to 12 months will be greatly superior to any dealings between then and when we took over. I'm not saying that you will always get the answer you want, but you will get an answer.

Just to briefly deal with Maverick's issue of Steyr support.
Steyr revoked Mermaid's franchise before we took over and it was taken on by Mitchell who also employed David Okey. We tried to broker a deal with Mitchell to enable us to continue to supprot Steyr products that we old Mermaid had supplied. Despite much reasoning, Mitchell would only deal with us on a retail basis. This meant that we could only buy parts at the same rate as any of our customers, and in some cases we paid more. We then had no choice but to refer all requests for Steyr spares and support back to Mitchell to deal with direct. We are still happy to look at Steyr jobs, but we cannot be competitive unless it is a labour only type job.

I hope you don't mind the long winded explanation, but I can assure you we are here for the long term and WE WILL take the Mermaid business forward. We have been in business as a group for over 90 years and are still family owned and run (not my family, I might add in case you were wondering). We will always try to do our best and we will always listen to our customers concerns.

I'm only an E-Mail or a phone call awy if ever anyone wants to discuss any specifics with me.

Thanks agisn both for your comments.

Best regards
Jon
 
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