Petrol V Deisel

[moresparks]

Just out of interest – Does anybody know what the fuel economy of the modern fuel injected petrol engines are? If the current advertising information is to be believed on say the Volvo 4.3 aquamatic, they highlight much better fuel economy.
Like most, in an ideal world I would like to replace my aging petrols with twin diesels but I have been advised that the shape of the hull and engine locker on my Fairline Targa 27 makes it very difficult to fit the modern diesel sterndrives, not withstanding the installation costs.

 

[Chris_d]

Just out of interest – Does anybody know what the fuel economy of the modern fuel injected petrol engines are? If the current advertising information is to be believed on say the Volvo 4.3 aquamatic, they highlight much better fuel economy.
Like most, in an ideal world I would like to replace my aging petrols with twin diesels but I have been advised that the shape of the hull and engine locker on my Fairline Targa 27 makes it very difficult to fit the modern diesel sterndrives, not withstanding the installation costs.

Re-engining rarely makes financial sense, in fact it never makes financial sense at all, but it might give you a better boat of you like it and intend to keep it.
If you just want twin diesels then sell it and buy a boat with twin diesels, if your petrols are knackered then just fix or fit reconditioned equivalents, if you are determined to spend big money then I would look at converting it to a single diesel, a modern diesel like a Volvo D4 in Fairline Targa 27 would really make it fly and use probably a third of the fuel, whilst costing half as much to service!

 

[MVP]

I know this is on a very small scale but we had a 16ft fishing boat with a 1980's 9.9 Yamaha 4-stroke.

The Yamaha was unreliable, so we replaced it with a new 15hp Johnson 4-stroke - the difference in fuel economy was staggering.

The Johnson just sipped fuel, I reckon it used less than half the fuel of the older, less powerfull engine, so I guess engine age, as well as fuel type pays a large part
in the cost per mile of boating

MVP

 

[longjohnsilver]

how many diesel runners can say they have not had a bill over 5k for unscheduled repairs?

If you buy a well maintained boat and engines then you'd be unlucky to have to spend anything like that amount, providing of course that you also look after them. I've had diesels for almost 20 years and probably haven't spent that much in total on them in all that time.

BUT they have all been Ford based engines so all parts are pretty cheap.

 

[enterprise]

We changed recently to a twin diesel Targa 28(kad32's) from a single petrol sealine 24(4.3lx merc).
We probably do the same distances in our T28 now as we did with the s24, the biggest and most astonishing thing for us was the fuel burn comparison.

We now run a twin diesel boat at greater cruising speed and more comfort than the single petrol engined boat for the same cost in fuel! and thats after the derogation ended.
No more humping cans of fuel down the pontoon and no worries on safety.
(We did have the fuel tank split on the petrol s24 and what a nightmare that was.)

We did look at a twin petrol s270, we were very seriously thinking of buying it, especialy after knocking £16k off the asking price but to my knowledge it failed to sell for over 12months after we walked.

We had no regrets paying the extra for the diesels, im not quite sure there is the mythical £10k difference these days, just have to shop around.
It makes more sense once you see the light so to speak, I too was synical prior to changing to diesel.