Hi all, newbie here.

Just bought my first boat with twin Volvo IPS 500, 250 hours on them, hull 2005.

Itīs been an absolute disaster, on the first journey, 30 mins after leaving the marina, the starboard IPS failed, heard a grinding noise come from the starboard engine so cut it and came in. There was no pressure holding in the gearbox, the engineer came out and took the IPS away to his workshop, a tooth had come off the gear set, run through the gears and cracked the case - full rebuild cost me 35,000.

On the second attempt to get her home, all was going well for two hours until the port engine needed to be shut down, apparently the top box has failed and the whole thing needs a rebuild again, sorry canīt be more specific!
I wish I had never ever bought Volvo, as a newcomer to the boating world this has become a complete disaster.

Bought from a broker, full surveys and engine serviced and checked, they say no warranty, not their problem. Just stuck with massive bills, is it worth it?
Has anyone experienced the same, Iīm gutted

 

I read read your post and we have a lot in common. I just purchased. 2009 Cruisers yachts 520 Sports Coupe. Triple D6 370 KA marine engines with 750 hours on each engine. I had a full marine survey done on the engine as well as the entire boat. I had all oil samples for the engines as well as the drives independently checked by a lab of which all came back favorably. The boat was a $475,000 purchase. About two hours into the trip of bringing it back to my home and overheat indicator went off on the starboard engine causing the engine is shut down. To make a long story short the engine had a catastrophic failure and completely seized causing $48,000 worth of damage to the engine without any insurance coverage. This was a failure that was caused by an internal problem and the engine had nothing to do with poor service or running the vessel in an improper manner. I have extensive service documents that show that all required services were done on this engine either on or before the scheduled required date. I wrote to Volvo in hopes that I can get them to work with me at giving me the cost price for the parts since insurance would not cover such extensive damage caused by an internal engine failure. To complicate the problem even worse I received a call several days later from the Volvo Penta dealer telling me that the starboard IE S Dr. had water in the gear fluid compartment indicating that one of the main seals had failed causing water to enter the drive Which now meant the drive needed a complete replacement edit additional cost of $27,000. Further investigation has shown that these IPS drives are not built well and in fact built to fail. This is an $80,000 repair in total which I cannot afford to pay out of pocket. This is a very serious issue and something I am considering on commencing litigation. I am looking for potential people that have had the same incidence as I have. Even though this vessel is 10 years old marine engines are suppose to last far past 750 hours. I would like to exchange information with you.

 

Hi there, I'm so sorry you have run into these problems and I hope you get things resolved, please email me at suki01@gmail.com
Cheers

 

Did you ever figure out what was going wrong with your engine? We are purchasing a boat and we found out that the one of the engines blew after about 500 hours. Regal/ Volvo replaced it under the warranty. Now about 530 hours on the new engine and we had the oil tested for the survey and the aluminum was 1400 on the replacement engine. We’re wondering what is making the engine go bad on the same side of the boat. Is there something that is making this happen?

 

Did you ever figure out what was going wrong with your engine? We are purchasing a boat and we found out that the one of the engines blew after about 500 hours. Regal/ Volvo replaced it under the warranty. Now about 530 hours on the new engine and we had the oil tested for the survey and the aluminum was 1400 on the replacement engine. We’re wondering what is making the engine go bad on the same side of the boat. Is there something that is making this happen?

 

I am unsure whether the issue I am having with our 2015 IPS 600 PODS is related or not, but will post here in case your note about "the tooth came off the gearset" referred to the steering knuckle of the IPS drive, or comparable metal fatigue.

Here is our situation this year:

The steering knuckles on both our IPS F series drives catastrophically failed within 50 hours of ownership on a 2015 Beneteau Swift Trawler, when the boat had only 450 hours on the engines/drives. There was no evidence of water intrusion in pre purchase oil analysis, after the 50 hours on the water and subsequent oil analysis, and also when the POD drives were disassembled. The issue occurred during the five year warranty period.

I have learned that heavy seas or even constant adjustments to the heading hold controller can place significant stress on the steering knuckles of IPS drives, particularly at trawler speeds of 8-10 knots. IPS drives were initially designed for high speed operation but then dropped into trawler style vessels. This stress may explain metal fatigue and POD failures.

There may be a correlation between use of the autopilot and significant POD repairs and replacement, which I must research as Volvo is claiming "there must have been water intrusion", when there is no evidence to claim this.

Please contact me if your situation is comparable.

=AZWFm-GTZ9vYneox270rknHpUfEWPTYo7_FTORMZcGIWf_2_xj0ftUWI 658FHdRWqDSkZwrV99sPEXElebIxe7K2CG1u35iVE7dHaA60O-YtzCMzxT4kAsDWxr6LiQP99d3Jfcr8iXSuVChcUtIwv8JTbBeD aZLU6_yrGiVUZuiSMA&__tn__=-]K-R]Michael Richards
206-696-3830
michaelrichards100@gmail.com
Seattle, WA USA

 

i have alreadyt replaced 3 ips drive and now my engine failed just the same way as yours
total engine hours 725 .
always maintained by volve

thoughts?

 

My 2008 Rodman 1170 that runs 2 x VP D6 - IPS drives.

I have owned the boat since 2018 with only 550 engine initial hours, we have already had at 700 hours - 4 x IPS water ingress fails!!! and it turns out that the previous owner had a least 2 fails also.

I have been looking into this event and found several other cases in the UK -

Two shafts and 4 sets of seals later, once again my gearboxes are emulsion -

Volvo Penta, seem to be happy to wait for loss of life!! when the IPS gear oil emulsifies sufficiently you loose Morse controls, unable to engage gears! this has been a near disaster for me.

Its Criminal that Volvo Penta are ABLE to neglect their duty of care to their customer base, In my case, this is the 7th vessel equipped with Volvo Penta's. I was a good customer !

There can be no argument at 700 hours these drives should not have failed, but 6 times is crazy!! these IPS drives serial number 21214193 – IPS -C 2.08 no 31940008487 are not fit for task!

My boat will be hauled next week for another attempt at fixing by A Volvo Penta engineering company.

Help.

 

Hello all,

I signed a contract to purchase a Marquis 40SC with twin Volvo IPS 600's yesterday. I wanted to do some research on the drives to see if there are any known issues I need to be looking out for before I sign the papers. Boat is a 2008 with about 480 hours on engines. Engines are Diesel 435 hp.

We're going to haul the boat and have the drives serviced and oil changed. Is there any reason to stay away from this particular year or model of engine/drive system?

 

check the transmission oil , to ensure no milky ness

 

Thank you, we plan to have a full survey done of both the hull and all mechanicals. I will specify this particular inspection.

 

Did you make the purchase? I have this same boat. I have had it for 7 years. I know everything about them. I have major IPS issues.

 

Hi Marquis
Im considering buying a Marquis 40 SC 2008 with IPS 600 diesels with 1350 hours each here in BC
Should I run away from it ? lol
Really like the boat tho. Just take a look at the photos...who would'nt like it !
Any advice?
my email is aaronscaraudio@hotmail.com
any feedback would be really usefull at this point .
many thanks

 

Well even a survey and a sea trial may not find everything. I bought a Chaparral with VP outdrive. It was surveyed and sea trial went fine. After purchase during winter service, metal pieces were found in the gear oil of the outdrive. When they tore the outdrive apart it was determined that the forward gear had one or two teeth missing. So a complete rebuild was done.

The only way to find this out during the sale would have been to drain the gear oil. If I was the seller would I want someone to be draining the gear oil? Maybe not filling it back up correctly?

 

Volvo IPS failure on Schaefer 450

So I have a 2024 boat that splashed late July last year and I am now on the 6th Pod for the boat.

The first two failed with faulty seals and salt water in both drives. They were replaced and then I left Ft Lauderdale and got to Charleston and salt water in the Port Drive again. It was replaced and then I leave Charleston and this time the whole transmission blows 10 miles offshore and now this has been replaced with the 6th pod, upper and lower I was told by Volvo that the initial pods failed as they had a known issue with the collars, something to do with making the seals more effective for salt water ingress.

Just curious if anyone else has experienced this issue as I would have thought that there would have been a recall on the original pods? Guessing these are in hundreds if not thousands of 2024 hull boats. Maybe they are just waiting to see how many fail before they replace them?

The boat has now been unusable for over 100 days due to repairs.

 

Are these getting replaced under warranty? Hopefully you just had a string of bad luck incidents.

 

They are but just a real concern something is up with the whole set up that is making this happen on multiple occasions. I have spent over $10k getting her lifted and blocked (3 times) which I should also get back and lost count of what has been spent on prop speed applications :-) - Manufacturer is just saying its a volvo issue

Now also concerned about the residual value of the boat after all these issues. This is my 7th boat so I'm use to boat issues but nothing like this! Just sucks the fun out of boating.

 

I think VP builds high quality drives. I have no experience with the IPS pods, only duo prop outdrive. But I do not see VP doing things to save the last nickel when designing their out drives.