Volvo Penta 2003 Routine Service Cost

[Beneteau381]

The Volvo oil and parts, including belt, impeller, filters, anode etc., come to £200inc VAT

Why use VP stuff? 15/40 supermarket oil is exactly what you need for that basic Diesel engine. Mr google is your friend to find out what filters will suffice from a motor factor, parts4 engines for your impellor etc
ah, beaten to it by Phil!

 

[Bobc]

When doing it yourself, you can choose to use cheap bits. If you are a professional, you need to either use genuine parts, or get prior agreement with the customer to use pattened parts.

To do a service and thorough check will take about 3 hours. So assuming £200 for parts a d £80/hr labour, expect £450-£500, if you want it done properly.

 

[madabouttheboat]

What maintenance schedule are you following; time on the vessel or hours used? As this is a boat, not an aircraft I don't use the landings variable.

As the average annual hours used for my VP2002 is 128, 'stuff' lasts years and years.

Note: As a student I spent a lot of time building databases for aircraft servicing companies.

Volvo’s maintenance schedule.

Perhaps you could list what your £30 buys you to give the OP a better idea of cost.

 

[madabouttheboat]

OK

Here's a list of basic service items for a 2003 using non-genuine where I can find them on places like Keypart, Amazon, Ebay etc. I know there will be further savings to be had from shopping around, but I still fail to see how even a very basic service could be carried of with £30 worth of parts

Oil x 3 litres = £33.00
Oil filter = £11.84
Fuel filter = £18.99
Primary fuel filter = £12.99
Alternator belt = £12.00
Impeller = £16.00

Then you have a possible anode on the engine and/or a coolant change every two years. You also have the gearbox/saildrive to service plus an occasional valve clearance check and adjust.

 

[grahamwhittle]

Thank you for a very interesting review of the options. Seems like DIY and non genuine parts wil be about £100 and double that with VP parts. The DIY is do able, I have now watched several videos. It is a dirty messy job. One can see that paying a trained engineer to travel and do the job will add a few hundred pounds to the cost. It seems this forum’s members like to DIY with non genuine parts.

 

[Sandy]

Volvo’s maintenance schedule.

Perhaps you could list what your £30 buys you to give the OP a better idea of cost.

A question was asked and I replied with my costs. The replacement of serviceable parts is the decision of the owner. Some like to change everything annually while others, like me, make different choices.

As stated above I choose not to follow Volvo Penta's maintenance schedule as, I in my opinion, my engine is lightly used at low speed. It is subject to daily, weekly and monthly checks. Items are replaced when needed.

I replaced the impeller in 2022 at todays cost of c£13.00 from repowermarine.com. I don't use VP original parts for simple service items that can be sourced elsewhere.

This winter I am doing an oil change after 350 'service hours' and four years in use. Cost about £12.00.

The engine is original to the boat, 1986, and to date has only had issues with the diesel bug clogging up the primary filter after purchasing red diesel from a supplier who had very turn over. Only white diesel purchased from a supermarket, because of their high turn over, is now used.

 

[madabouttheboat]

As stated above I choose not to follow Volvo Penta's maintenance schedule as, I in my opinion, my engine is lightly used at low speed. It is subject to daily, weekly and monthly checks. Items are replaced when needed.

I replaced the impeller in 2022 at todays cost of c£13.00 from repowermarine.com. I don't use VP original parts for simple service items that can be sourced elsewhere.

This winter I am doing an oil change after 350 'service hours' and four years in use. Cost about £12.00.

The engine is original to the boat, 1986, and to date has only had issues with the diesel bug clogging up the primary filter after purchasing red diesel from a supplier who had very turn over. Only white diesel purchased from a supermarket, because of their high turn over, is now used.

In other words your engine has a poor service history. Probably not ideal to encourage others to follow that regime. Four years and 350 hours for an oil change! Obviously using some pretty sketchy oil and, by the sounds of it, you still won't be changing the filter.

 

[Sandy]

In other words your engine has a poor service history. Probably not ideal to encourage others to follow that regime. Four years and 350 hours for an oil change! Obviously using some pretty sketchy oil and, by the sounds of it, you still won't be changing the filter.

Any half decent mechanic would spot an issue with the engine within 30 seconds of start up.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

OK

Here's a list of basic service items for a 2003 using non-genuine where I can find them on places like Keypart, Amazon, Ebay etc. I know there will be further savings to be had from shopping around, but I still fail to see how even a very basic service could be carried of with £30 worth of parts

Oil x 3 litres = £33.00
Oil filter = £11.84
Fuel filter = £18.99
Primary fuel filter = £12.99
Alternator belt = £12.00
Impeller = £16.00

Then you have a possible anode on the engine and/or a coolant change every two years. You also have the gearbox/saildrive to service plus an occasional valve clearance check and adjust.

Well, I pay half that for filters - but my daughter is in the trade!

 

[Beneteau381]

Thank you for a very interesting review of the options. Seems like DIY and non genuine parts wil be about £100 and double that with VP parts. The DIY is do able, I have now watched several videos. It is a dirty messy job. One can see that paying a trained engineer to travel and do the job will add a few hundred pounds to the cost. It seems this forum’s members like to DIY with non genuine parts.

Non genuine parts are just as good as vp branded parts! Do you really think that vp make filters?.

 

[Beneteau381]

In other words your engine has a poor service history. Probably not ideal to encourage others to follow that regime. Four years and 350 hours for an oil change! Obviously using some pretty sketchy oil and, by the sounds of it, you still won't be changing the filter.

Sketchy? Define sketchy?

 

[hurley]

Don't most engine manufacturers recommend a certain number of hours or annually which ever comes first? I think in a diesel engine it's even more important. But I'm not an expert and for this reason and for the low cost of a few quid I happily change my oil as suggested.

 

[Sandy]

Don't most engine manufacturers recommend a certain number of hours or annually which ever comes first? I think in a diesel engine it's even more important. But I'm not an expert and for this reason and for the low cost of a few quid I happily change my oil as suggested.

They do. Amongst many engineers and proper old school mechanics it is know as 'arse covering'. Can't comment what modern technicians think as they tend to follow the job sheet and replace anything they are told to.

In my case my sailing boat has an 'auxiliary engine' that makes getting to the club before closing time into and out of harbour easier. It is not run hard, I get 5.5 knots at 2200 rpm, and the annual hours are low. Now if it was on a motor boat where it is run hard, most motor boaters I know think 10 knots is slow, and run for hours and hours then I would be more likely to follow the manufactures suggested maintenance schedule.

 

[Bobc]

They do. Amongst many engineers and proper old school mechanics it is know as 'arse covering'. Can't comment what modern technicians think as they tend to follow the job sheet and replace anything they are told to.

In my case my sailing boat has an 'auxiliary engine' that makes getting to the club before closing time into and out of harbour easier. It is not run hard, I get 5.5 knots at 2200 rpm, and the annual hours are low. Now if it was on a motor boat where it is run hard, most motor boaters I know think 10 knots is slow, and run for hours and hours then I would be more likely to follow the manufactures suggested maintenance schedule.

Short runs at low revs is about as bad as it gets for diesel engines. They rely on heat to run properly and to keep themselves clean.

You are more likely to be killing your engine than lookjng after it.

 

[Sandy]

Short runs at low revs is about as bad as it gets for diesel engines. They rely on heat to run properly and to keep themselves clean.

You are more likely to be killing your engine than lookjng after it.

Can you define a short run?

 

[Bobc]

Can you define a short run?

I would say anything less than an hour. You really needcto run an engine fairly hard for a couple of hours to get it up to proper temperature and let it burn off all the carbon

 

[Sandy]

I would say anything less than an hour. You really needcto run an engine fairly hard for a couple of hours to get it up to proper temperature and let it burn off all the carbon

It takes me an hour to get from the mooring to Plymouth Breakwater.

 

[Bobc]

It takes me an hour to get from the mooring to Plymouth Breakwater.

Run the engine at full cruising revs then (2/3 -3/4 WOT).

 

[davidej]

Short runs at low revs is about as bad as it gets for diesel engines. They rely on heat to run properly and to keep themselves clean.

You are more likely to be killing your engine than lookjng after it.

This seems a bit extreme!

Our MD 2030 is 20 years old and at least 5000 hrs - don’t know exactly as the hours meter stopped working years ago. It has had plenty of short runs15 - 30 minutes to and from the mooring interspersed with the occasional long runs.

Still as good as the day it was built. The only repair over that time has been to replace the waterpump seals.

 

[Bobc]

This seems a bit extreme!

Our MD 2030 is 20 years old and at least 5000 hrs - don’t know exactly as the hours meter stopped working years ago. It has had plenty of short runs15 - 30 minutes to and from the mooring interspersed with the occasional long runs.

Still as good as the day it was built. The only repair over that time has been to replace the waterpump seals.

Not at all. The stories you read on hear and on social media of blocked exhaust elbows, blocked injectors, badly coked-up heads and valves, and diesel in the oil, are almost always as a result of the engine not being run hard enough or hot enough. A diesel engine relies on heat to work properly. This is also why diesel cars get blocked DPFs and EGR valves. It is almost always because they are used for short journeys around town and are never allowed to heat up properly and never put under load on a motorway. The engine of a 5 year old diesel car that has done 100k of motorway miles, will be in far better nick that one that has done 30k miles to the shops and back.