MAN Diesel longevity and overhaul cost???

Pete's shop is called Marine Diesel Specialists in Fort Lauderdale, they are a MAN dealer and do great work.

At one time Man's and Mtu's were the most expensive to maintain. Recently, I had a quote for 3000hr. service on Cat 3406E's @ $16,850 plus $8050 for the heat exchangers. Needless to say I was surprised, Cat has joined the maintenance party too. I would get as many quotes as possible and check their references thoroughly. Had two boats with Man's, check out who you deal with.

If you're in South Florida. Get a quote from N+G engineering, they are CAT certified and do very good work and a bit more reasonable than Pantropic.

For Caterpillar service ( this thread asks about MAN) Mendol in FLL is also very well regarded and have done a few major jobs for one of my customers with a satisfied customer and a good result.

Was that for two engines or $16k per engine?

It always amazes me hearing the comments about this engine or that engine maintenance being expensive and numbers just being tossed around without necessarily addressing exactly what is included or what generation engine is being dealt with. We have MAN and MTU and one Yanmar and a bunch of Textron and then Yamaha. I've previously owned Mercruiser and Volvo I/O's. I've never experienced major issues with any as I've religiously followed the maintenance schedules.

I'm very willing to pay for the recommended preventive maintenance to avoid major issues.

Most items on MAN's schedule are hours or time. Every 200 hours or 1 year is just checking a long list of things and cleaning the fuel pre-filter while draining water from the auxiliary fuel filter and changing the fuel filter cartridges. Every 400 hours or 1 year is changing the engine oil and filter, the crankcase breather filter and the air filter. Still all minor things. And every 800 hours (400 at first) is checking and setting valve clearance. All service intervals include an engine speed test under full load. Every two years is changing both valve caps on expansion tanks and cleaning the intercooler, charge-air pipes, turbocharger and heat exchanger. Every four years is changing coolant and all hoses. I just don't see anything outrageous in any of that.

Beau mentions "changed my injectors every two years until a 1000 hours (curious combination of parameters)". Well, on the current common rail engines there is nothing in the maintenance schedule about changing injectors. It is not specified.

I think in some cases it's like car dealers who try to push into a service plan that isn't the manufacturer's.

Here is the MAN maintenance schedule courtesy of marine diesel.

http://marinedieselspecialists.com/man-maintenance

We've been told MAN maintenance was outrageous and MTU was outrageous and just haven't found either to be the case.

In looking at CAT maintenance schedules, some of MAN's 4 years is 6 years and 2 years is 4 years except for the fuel burned aspects. You take an engine burning 40 gph and the 3000 or 6 year service is then at 1800 hours. As to the prices various dealers charge for CAT service, I don't have any perspective on that.

One other aspect. A poster above talked about 2.5 weeks. Well, we've never had any service exceed one week.

Beau mentions "changed my injectors every two years until a 1000 hours (curious combination of parameters)". Well, on the current common rail engines there is nothing in the maintenance schedule about changing injectors. It is not specified....

One other aspect. A poster above talked about 2.5 weeks. Well, we've never had any service exceed one week.

My engines are older 1998 820's the maintenance schedule written then was crazy.

My service usually takes 2-3 days, and its pretty extensive.

I've never seen that maintenance schedule. The one today looks reasonable. Yes, two to three days seems normal to me. Anytime we get service by a yard, we deliver the boat early Monday and retrieve it no later than mid afternoon Friday. That has never been a problem.

Man maintenance is expensive compared to the others on yachts due to the low hours most owners typically put on them for several reasons. Doing the 1000 hour service every 2 years regardless of hours as recommended by the MAN schedule on a set of 1100 common rails runs $16k for the pair with good access to the outside of the engine. Here's why, it's pretty complex to take the intercooler and aftercoolers off of the engine due to the way they're packaged, etc. This is one aspect. The parts are pricey and the complexity and stupidity that MAN does some things is beyond me. For example the oil filters, there are 2 per motor, but they're a cartridge in an upside down metal can, it typically takes 2 people to change the oil filters, not to mention it's around $100 per engine for the filters and crush washers, you also have to take the drain bolts out prior to changing them and usually suck it out with a pump and it almost always inevitably makes a big mess due to the filters location on the motor and proximity to the stringer......I could change ALL filters (primary/secondary fuel, oil filters) on BOTH CAT engines in an hour usually......MAN it's about 5-6 labor hours to do both (with a helper included) and even longer if you make a mess and of course one is always buried on the hard to get to outbound side because the remote mount kit is like $4000 from MAN and no manufacturer ever mounts them elsewhere with the kit (and I've seen this on Azimut, Sunseeker, Viking SC/Princess, Cabo, Viking, etc. ). Plus the common rails require full synthetic oil at $50 a gallon versus $20 a gallon for the cat oil, this adds $720 just in oil cost.

The fuel filters are the same way, the water seperating secondaries have very fragile wires on them for the water sensors and the plugs, so most people don't unplug them, just carefully undue it while winding the wiring in circles (requiring a helper), the secondaries, you have to take one off to get the other off, can't fill them to the top, so have to open bleed screws and hand pump the fuel once the secondaries are on their to bleed the air out...........This easily adds 2 hours for 2 people versus CATS which I could do both engines in literally 15 minutes by myself.

MAN does recommend at the 1000 hours to pull the injectors and have them tested on all of them......

Almost all MAN owners out of warranty, NEVER do the 1000 hour service every 2 years, they generally do it just at 1000 hours, or if they're seeing high temperatures.

Bottom line is both the annual service and 1000 service is A LOT more hours to do over a CAT or MTU due to the packaging of accessories on the engine and extra man hours it takes to change them. A MAN annual service is easily an extra day compared to the same service on a cat. And the 1000hr/2year service 2 days. Add this up at $116hr plus drive time for 2 people, well you get the idea. Up until recently CAT 1000 hour service was just recommended on engine hours not years also. The years thing is recent and the fuel burn recommendation is recent.

On current MAN engines, there is no such thing as 1000 hour service. I linked to the complete maintenance schedule earlier in this thread. There is two year service but no hours attached to it. The entirety of the two year service is changing both valve caps on expansion tank and cleaning intercooler, charge-air pipes, turbocharger, and heat exchanger (pipe cluster). and MAN has not specified any service on the injectors.

Please, if you have any current MAN document referring to 1000 hour service, give me a link to it. The maintenance requirements I linked to earlier are from Marine Diesel, who you recommend.

What you guys keep bringing up may well have been the recommendations at some point, but not today.

What was considered the 1000 hour service is the A1 designation in the current plan you posted. Cleaning the heat exchangers, aftercoolers, and intercoolers is BIG MONEY. So basically spending $16k every 2 years on the service, for a yacht that doesn't do a lot of hours, it could easily be done every 4-8 years. If you're doing the hours then yes......It's really ODD it does not list hours for them, because if they're in a commercial boat doing 800-1000 hours a year, they'll need to be done at 1000 hours almost always.

I don't see a recommendation on paper for fuel injectors anymore, however they will recommend pulling them and testing them when you do the major service (A1) both so they don't get stuck in the injector tubes and to rebuild them.

Typo= I meant to say A.2 remove and clean heat exchangers, intercoolers, aftercoolers.

Yes, for two engines. The 3000hr. requires some additional work and heat exchanger inspection. The heat exchangers visibly had problems and required pulling, cleaning, and re-assembly which are expensive to service. Also, my point was Cats are getting as expensive to maintenance as Man.

I agree when it comes to the aftercooler situation with CATs. However, the general service is still A LOT less......namely oil price, filter prices, access and length of time to do the equivalent service.

The quotes were from Ring Power. Their prices rival Man, but surely could be done for a bit less by an independent Cat mechanic. I agree, my experience with general Cat 3412 maintenance was considerably less compared to my previous Man v-12's.

Which engines did you like better?

The Cat 3412's , no comparison.