PaulRainbow
Well-Known Member
Too much clap trap from people who wouldn't know a big end from a bell end :encouragement:
Reconditioned a legal term?
- Thread starter Malabarista
- Start date
Too much clap trap from people who wouldn't know a big end from a bell end :encouragement:
PaulRainbow
Well-Known Member
Nonsense.
How do you know it has had "zero conditioning" ? No-one, including the OP, has seen inside the engine to see what has been done to the engine, or not.
You don't take an engine out and start boring, grinding and replacing parts willy-nilly just because it got some water in it. There is no benefit, how does re-grinding a crank and fitting new shells improve an engine that just got wet ?
It doesn't and no self respecting professional engineer would carry out that level of work on an engine that didn't need it. You commented earlier on pro-engineers in this thread wanting to charge him more money, presumably putting me in that camp. I haven't suggested he gives me any money. I have suggested that rather than buy a new engine he gets this one properly checked. On the one hand you complain about engineers trying to get more money out of someone, on the other hand, you expect that the PO should have had the engine fully re-manufactured due to water ingress.
Make your mind up.
Over the years I have noticed that people in your position exude positivity about their capacity to restore an engine back to health. It is very easy for a yacht owner to blow £1000 a year in this fix-up cycle, net result is that 10 years later £10,000 has gone and the engine is even older. The winners are the marine engineers because hourly rates distort financial ownership equation.
No. I only expect people to describe their yacht honestly or face legal consequences. A repair is not reconditioning.
sailaboutvic
Well-Known Member
Where are you getting zero condition from ? If a fact that the engine have had some work done on it , how much no one knows .
we may all be very surprise to find that in fact it has been recon and there nothing wrong with it and Dave been con by an guy looking to take advance from someone who know very little about engines .
duncan99210
Well-Known Member
Hmm, not quite so. A repair restores an item to a good condition. Recondition does the same: returns a damaged/worn item to a good condition. One can dance on the head of a pin regarding the definition but I think that the real problem with this case is the time lapse between sale and the POSSIBLE discovery that the engine had problems. If this had been identified when the boat arrived at the marina, then I'd say the buyer would have had a case against the seller albeit a weak one in the light of the boat's history.
The engine was repaired and running when the op bought the boat. After a series of problems moving the boat to its current location (mainly gearbox) the engine was left for a year. The OP has also remarked that the engine was covered in a tarpaulin and often had a heater placed nearby it because the hatch had been removed.....
Now, the engine has been removed and a mechanic has sucked his teeth over it after a pretty cursory examination. It now been sent to another workshop for a second opinion. That examination will reveal the internal state of the engine and if it is fit for use.
Having dealt with engines which have been submerged, there are no internal components that need replacing after immersion. Just about all the components that need attention are external and electrical: starter motor etc. So to recondition a submerged engine, all that it required is to examine it thoroughly, clean and flush it and replace any water damaged items.
Reconditioning must involve some degree of elective improvement otherwise it is just a repair or a routine service.
At one end of the scale we have repairs & servicing and at the other end there is re-manufacturing. Reconditioning sits on that scale somewhere. I agree with the prevailing sentiment that it is foolish to place much faith in the term when buying a yacht unless there is evidence to back up the claim.
We are discussing options to help the OP think through his next action. One of those options is what to do if no evidence of reconditioning can be shown, in this situation many are convinced there is is still absolutely zero as in zilch chance of redress. Others think otherwise but you are struggling to cope with the concept you might not be right.
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sailaboutvic
Well-Known Member
What I am suggestion and have been from the start is he get on with his life and forget at this late date to take any action against the PO as not only it's going to stress him out even more and cost him more money but the change of winning any case is at the very less slim .
Especially if it came to light that work has been done on the engine , which it Seen it may have .
I have to wonder how many people would had taken out a. Good working engine on the say so of one guy just to see if indeed it has been worked on .
I know for sure I wouldn't , at the very less got a second option .
The only option the OP has now that he gone so far to remove the engine is ,
Now he has pass it on to a good engineer company Is to see if anything do need doing to it while it's in bits and have it put back .
We have all to remember until a few posting ago nothing has been said about the engine having any problem , only the gearbox .
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I concede that as the OP has provided more details later in the thread the outlook for the legal route is getting worse. This is still a useful thread about how vague the "reconditioned" phrase is, I would go further and say the presence of the claim in a sale description immediately puts me on "bluffing dodgy owner alert".
sailaboutvic
Well-Known Member
The lesson is very clear , if you buying a boat / car and you told the engine / gearbox of anything else for that matter had been reconditioned, most people would be asking what did the recondition involve .
Anyone who assume it mean a full strip down and replacement of all the part bring back the engine as it was new , is just fooling him or herself
PaulRainbow
Well-Known Member
The reason i have confidence in being able to restore an engine back to health is because that's what i have been doing successfully since to 1970s. If i repaired an engine this year i certainly wouldn't expect to be repairing it again next year or indeed every year for 10 years, that's just ridiculous. If a tired/faulty/worn out/flooded engine is correctly assessed and repaired there is no reason it should not go on to give many years of good service.
Knee jerk "reconditioning" serves nobody well. Fully re-manufacturing an engine just because it has been flooded would be a waste of time and a waste of the owners money, water being in the engine won't wear anything ot, so nothing internal will need changing. Drain, clean, flush, service and paint is all that is needed to bring the engine itself back into the condition it was in before it was flooded. Some external ancillary items, mostly electrical will also need to be repaired or replaced.
It's equally a waste of time and money half repairing a worn out engine. But if the worn out engine is correctly assessed and repaired it could go on to give many years of service and save the owner a considerable amount of money.
There are, of course, engines that should just be allowed to die gracefully. Deciding which is which is where having a decent mechanic is important. The previously mentioned "tooth suckers" and men "with a set of spanners for Christmas" are not what's needed.
Find us all a legal, cast iron definition of "reconditioned" then.
Oh, wait, there isn't one.
In any case, not only do we not know the extent of the "reconditioning", we don't know what condition the engine is in now, neither do we even know if the engine even had any water in it. There is a pair of 6 cylinder Yanmars sitting in the workshop here that were removed from a flooded boat. Neither engine suffered any water ingress, but the transmissions and some ancillary equipment did. They have both been dealt with appropriately and will no doubt be none the worse for it.
penberth3
Well-Known Member
Well said, I think we should have this carved in stone.
I know when someone is on dodgy ground because they take an extreme version of something they think you said and then dispute that imaginary statement.
I have already said re-manufacturing is the far end of the spectrum with repair and routine servicing at the other end. Reconditioning is something in-between and would involve an element of elective improvement.
Why not challenge the concise point that I made previously rather than huffing & puffing about your own imagination.
Malabarista
Well-Known Member
O
With the actual engine nothing has gone wrong, it was reinstalled by somebody who blatently didn’t care about his work. The alternator was not wired up correctly, the starter motor was rusted. The engine mounts were on their last legs and there was no attempt made to clean or remove the flaking paint from the engine space whilst it was out. The calorifier had been botched and the hoses were rotten. The wiring loom had been butchered. So i think i was justified in removing it to have it examined by a professional. For my peace of mind.
With the actual engine nothing has gone wrong, it was reinstalled by somebody who blatently didn’t care about his work. The alternator was not wired up correctly, the starter motor was rusted. The engine mounts were on their last legs and there was no attempt made to clean or remove the flaking paint from the engine space whilst it was out. The calorifier had been botched and the hoses were rotten. The wiring loom had been butchered. So i think i was justified in removing it to have it examined by a professional. For my peace of mind.
PaulRainbow
Well-Known Member
You have not made any concise points, just posted nonsense.
Back under your bridge troll.
PaulRainbow
Well-Known Member
Thing is though Dave, you've drip fed the facts, so everything in the first 15 pages is now largely immaterial.
Malabarista
Well-Known Member
Er....why?
My original question was about whether there was a legal definition of the word ‘reconditioned’.
I think that thanks to the many replies and discussions that there is not. The engine is still in transit ( quite literally as it’s in the back of my van). As part of this debate i was asked quite rightly whether i had had the engine removed unnecessarily. My further information in in reply to this. I apologise if i have misled anyone, it was not my intention. The ‘bolt on bits’ i am fully prepared to change or repair but the engine itself......well time will tell.
Thanks for your advice
sailaboutvic
Well-Known Member
There no doubt there was work that needed doing , this you knew well before you even got your hands on the boat Dave ,
We have a Moody 42 and it would take some work to remove our engine part of the cockpit would need removing to start with .
The list of job you just given would had been very easy to do while the engine was in place and they give no indication that there anything wrong with the engine other then at some point water has got in there .
I have to say there has been times when I started a job and tho , let just rip the lot out and start again , but I not sure I would remove the engine because of a starter motor , alternator and some mounts and I know about engine let alone if I didn't .
As for your engineer I guess he took one look at the mess and came to the conclusion the engine hasn't had any work on it , just show how inexperienced he was , other wise he would had carried out some test before stating its Fcuk and suggesting taking it out .
As for the engineer who the PO employed the rusty starter , mounts or the wiring could have had nothing to do with him ,
if all he was asked was to work on the engine , it could had easily been the PO him self who removed the engine and replaced it , replacing the old starter and alternator and making a mess of the wiring , just like in your case where you removed the engine , Volvo could turn that engine into a new engine but you putting it back could make a hash up and the next guy who looks in there could think the engine look crap .
I for one would be very interested in the findings .
Good luck
Malabarista
Well-Known Member
morning Vic
on the 44 there is a large life raft storage well set into the cockpit floor. this unscrews and when removed allows the engine to be lifted straight out. I still don't regret removing the engine as the bilge beneath it was covered in a layer about 2" thick of old dried oil cake. the set up is very well designed as the main bilge passes underneath the engine bilge which is entirely segregated from the rest of the boat to avoid oil contamination. however it does mean that there is an area of the bilge that is nigh on impossible to reach with the engine in place. As a large part of my work so far on BC has been to attend to the long history of neglect in the cleaning regime it had been bugging me that the unseen dirt in this area had been washing into clean areas as my soapy water ran underneath the engine. I'm not talking about a wipe down here. Removing the accumulated crud of many years has revealed nuts, bolts steel screws and even a few tins of corned beef! Before I completely rewire and replumb her I want my attachment points to be easily cleaned in the future. I have the time to do this as we factored in two years of work before we will be in a situation such that we can both leave our jobs for long periods.
I will of course report the findings as soon as I know them.
thanks for your input
PaulRainbow
Well-Known Member
Not suggesting any attempts to mislead Dave. Just that some of the details you have posted in later posts would have influenced some peoples thinking had they been posted sooner.
For instance, the gearbox and starter failures might suggest that the work on the engine may not have been done properly. Failure to clean the bilge etc certainly indicates a sloppy attitude by the PO.
That said, my advice to get the engine properly looked at would still stand.
Do you know the extent of the flooding ? How deeply was the engine submerged ?
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