Mermaid Marine customer support for MP range Chinese made engines

[oldengine]

You may remember me writing that "......the reality is that the spigot the filter screws on to came loose and is not only a loose fit on the threads in the housing but also on the filter itself."
There's now a video clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIJF9XmEZck that shows the very wobbly filter just before it seats on the rubber seal.
Oldengine

 

[Storm Petrel]

Looked up this thread because I was considering a Mermaid 11. Was under the impression that it was basically the marine (not marinised) version of Ford 's New Holland tractor engine. There's a F N H non-marine tractor engine in a boat I know and it just goes on & on. Only thing I didn't like about it was it wasn't marine, so all electrics at the base etc, plus I wasn't sure of thrust bearing. Unknown g'box. So when I heard same company were doing marine version under the Mermaid label, I thought let's try one.

Having realized they've outsourced their manufacturing base to China, I won't be. Having worked in scrap, I know their steel, & it's so many times recycled it's unreliable against pitting & splitting etc for engineering manufacturing, whatever the given carbon content. It's a messy mix. Any of the problems mentioned above could possibly be traced back to metal failure rather than sloppy manufacture. (If the original factory was shipped out, the original spec would be repeated, but that's only one of a series of factors in getting same engines. Can be like trying to make a cake with same recipe but different cook, different ingredients etc.)

Personally I would have nothing of steel from the far east. E.g. the Japanese are very clever & make stuff like the Beta series to incredibly fine spec, which are considered the dogs' bollocks these days, but will they still be running in 100 years like Lister, Blackstone, Kelvin etc?
I think not.

Those engines were built when steel was less refined (although less recycled) but had the tolerances built in, plenty of meat to lose, re-lining easy etc & personally I would rather get something that's been run in for 100 years & see what it does, being able to predict from that what it will do for the next 50. Some of the "obsolete" stuff is actually the best and is doing a comeback like vinyl records --- originals preferred to re-mastered, so to speak. Parts may be harder to get but are easier to machine from scratch if needed.