Looking for Feedback on Azimut 62FB (2004-2007)

It is a great boat indeed, tight access in engine room and other areas is another concern I have.

A friend upgraded to M59 couple years ago and is very happy. Do you have any details why you're recommending to stay away from it?

I'm reading that CAT requires coolers to be changed at every 1,000 hrs or 6 years. Are those not serviceable (core gets out to be cleaned and greased), like in other engines?

I rather have the roominess high freeboard provides and deal with "inconvenience" of boarding. I also meant to refer to marquipt (https://www.marquipt.com/products/sea-stair/) boarding ladder as a solution for side boarding.

Does this apply to only larger CATs like C18 or larger? I know many folks with CATs in 350-500HP range that never change theirs in 15 years of service.

I'm reading on another board that C18s aftercoolers have removable core. To me it's inline with other brands and falls in the category of major maintenance (1K hrs or 2-3yrs, whichever comes first). I can only assume that you had to replace your because the core was beyond cleaning condition and the owner said just put new ones in. Am I missing anything?

I do this service as per recommendation of my brand (CUMMINS). I could be wrong, but if I'm reading various posts correctly, CAT kind of misled the public by stating to just inspect the coolers. If they stated that hey need to be serviced like other manufacturers state, perhaps lots of issues could have been avoided. I'm still learning about CATs, so I could be making wrong assumption.

Liam,
Great post, thank you.

Some time ago I've heard that some older versions of oval windows leaked. I don't recall if it applied to 55, 62 or both. On the bright side, at least you could open them for natural ventilation. Do you know if there are any issues with the larger version of glued on windows?

Thanks for noticing.....Glad I was within allowed 30 min for post editing....LOL

I think I just found the answer to my own question regarding the afercoolers change. I'll post basic info here for anyone who's following the thread and whoever will be doing the same search in the future.

Source of the data boatdiesel.com, which is an excellent resource I've used for many years.

A member has posted his issue:
"Rebuild At 1700 Due To Internal Rust And Corrosion

I have just been informed by RINGPOWER that my CAT C-18 engines need approx 50,000 worth of repairs with only about 1750 hours. I bought the 48 ft express boat new in 2005. Apparently, the aftercoolers needed to be inspected at 1000 hrs.

My 5 year extended warranties just expired last December. There was no evidence of any problems until this issue occured. No smoking, engines ran according to specs until port engine began smoking upon acceleration. Afer about 12-1500 rpms, once on a plane, both engines appeared to perform fine. The port side loss of power kept getting worse gradually until the starboard engine would no longer help get the boat up on a plane. When the aftercoolers were inspected, there was evidence of salt in the starboard but not the port side engine.

My question is: Does it make sense that both engines would fail at the same time due to leaks in the aftercoolers and would the failure occur so suddenly

without warning? Am I the only one who´s aftercoolers have caused this much damage after only 1700 hours?

The mechanic even suggested that since I keep the boat on a lift, that maybe that´s contributed to this internal rust issue. Kind of makes me question his knowledge of marine engines."

Another knowledgeable member posted:
"Why did you ignore the maintenance schedule to clean and test the aftercooler core at 1000 hrs??

Often leaks are caused by leaking seals on water tubes and adapters and not the core itself. These seals would get replaced during the 1000 hr aftercooler maintenance."

Original poster responded:
"Simply unaware. Not having had engines that required dis-assembly to this extent for maintenance. Believe me, had I been informed this could happen, I would have gladly had it checked, although 1000 hours seems early to me to have to take apart an engine and check for leaks that you would have no other way to know about."

My preliminary conclusion is that, if CAT's owners manual (I don't have one so I can't say that it's 100% fact) suggests to only check the aftercoolers at 1000hrs, it creates two problems:
1. 1000hrs in recreational usage is super long time. For seasonal boaters that put 50-100hrs it translates to over 10 years of operation. At this point, going by recommendations of other brands, it's almost a guaranty that your coolers are tossed.
2. Just checking aftercoolers? Again, I don't have the CATs book in front of me, so I don't see the exact wording. But, going on what I'm reading from different sources it's very misleading. The example I just posted above shows how aftercoolers were inspected, but not serviced, so it's only a matter of a short time frame until one is faced with a catastrophical engine failure.

I'm also concluding for myself that if similar (3 years or so) interval is used for full and proper service, there should be great chance for those aftercoolers last much much longer and one would see the failure symptoms during the regular service. All of this should translate into saving the engines live and of course $ for the owner.