Mikuni diesel heaters

[JeremyF]

At LIBS I did the tour of the diesel heating companies. Eber and Webasto are about the same price. Mikuni is quite a bit cheaper.
Anyone have any experience, good or bad, of Mikuni?

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[snowleopard]

there were comments a couple of years ago on this forum, not very complimentary. don't know if they've improved since then.

 

[andyball]

A pal has one on his Hillyard 12 tonner & is v.pleased indeed.For my ears, the exhaust is a bit noisy (despite a silencer), tho' fine inside, just the usual fan noise.

 

[longjohnsilver]

I've had one for the last 3 years and find it excellent.

The bad comments on here were I think about Ardics, again used to have one before the Mikuni and it was truly dreadful.

 

[jonjo]

Sailing Today published a long-term group review in October 2002, a Mikuni was not included.

It might be worth investigating the start-up electrical requirement, the Eberspacher requires a hefty 22A for 45 seconds. In fact that is such an astonishing current I suspect a printing error! The Wallas is 8A for 240secs.

Noise, particularly clicks, was an issue for some reviewers.

The heaters faired well in the test Sea School yachts but this contrasts with grumbles I have read here. There might be an argument for underspecing the unit so that it runs at a max setting and so avoid the coking issue.

 

[HaraldS]

Heard good things about the Mikuni from a friend that has one. Looking at them they look like an Eberspächer copy. I have two Ebersbächer and they are on my list of stuff I wouldn't take again.

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[JeremyF]

Eberspacher's seem to eat plugs, it seems, and need servicing every year, it seems. Should I expect the same for Mikuni, I wonder?

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[HaraldS]

Jeremy,

My friend says this is the 3rd winter where he is using it occasionally when he is down seeing his boat for a few days, he's never had problems so far. Seems he doesn't have many hours on it, but that's like me on my Eberspachers and I had to take the smaller DL3 apart and clean it and it still smokes more than it should, the larger one goes off after some hours, but it is usually possible to restart it. I need to replace at least the vaporizing screen this year, the plug is still glowing, but maybe not even enough and that might be part of the problem.

I think all theese heaters prefer to run on middle power forever and most don't like the short stunts. But in my car I have a Webasto with remote control, and it gets to run every winter some 20 times for half an hour to de-ice. It's four years now and never had a problem.

I'm sure that with the Mikuni, you well get something that isn't worse than the Eberspacher and probably better, for half the money.

Harald



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[longjohnsilver]

Haven't touched mine since I installed it 3 yrs ago. Still starts and runs perfectly.

 

[andy_wilson]

Yep.

My Mikuni 30 was smelly when I bought the boat, seemingly due to non-stop purchasers 'giving it a try' for a few minutes.

After a long run at full pelt it when I got it, it now starts first time and whistles gently like a distant jet engine on the outside, and fills the cabin with warm dry air.

Never needs attention, which is just as well as I would need to disconnect the cockpit drains and send a small child between the cockpit and transom mouldings (occupied by the rudder tube) to get at the thing.

God knows how they got it in there.

 

[Gunfleet]

Andy,
You need to watch it. Those small children grow into great big husky adults and then it's useless hoping to send them into your lockers. It has saved me buying a windlass though! ;-)