I purchased a 36ft boat in the UAE powered with twin Yamaha Diesel stern drives. My choice was driven by company advertisement claiming reliability. The boat was delivered in september.
10 months later, abnormal noise of one stern leg was reported to the boatbuilder, to Yamaha Dubai and to Yamaha Tunisia (Industria). All suggested to remove the leg and to examine eventual damage due to faulty seal. No problem was noted and the use of boat was verbally suggested.
Shortly after, both drives stopped functionning after a 5 hours trip, 20 miles of the coast in the darkest night.
Following the instructions of Yamaha Tunisia, we cleaned oil strainers clogged by excessive amounts of metal particles.
I contacted Yamaha Motors in Japan (Mr Hiroki Nishizumi and Mr Muneya Tatsumi) who suggested to have the drives examined by their representative in the UAE. When shipped both drives showed signs of internal damage with roughness when spinning propeller shaft. Drives were returned in perfect condition from workshop.
The process to ship the drives and get them back took 4 full months. The drives were serviced and the conclusion was that one drive has a damaged bearing housing (and it made sense that I damaged it when reassembling the frozen parts). They also concluded that for both drives internal components were as new thus dismantling of one drive was not justified and the work will be charged for labour of one drive and parts and labour for the other one.
I was pleased to pay and to get over with the problem, however I had no explanation to transmission failure and the presence of large amounts of metal debris.
9 months later and only 65 hours of use of the drives, same problem occurs... 20 miles off the coast.
In a reply to my e-mail, Yamaha Motors Japan asked to deal with their representative in Tunisia (Industria). I requested the presence of an official expert (that is only appointed by a judge) to help identify the reason of the failure. Yamaha Tunisia appealed against the presence of the expert, fortunately the decision of the judge was on my side.
Yamaha Tunisia agreed to dismantle the drives after Yamaha Motors Japan requested them to do so. The condition was to have payment in full and in advance and my agreement that Industria (Yamaha Tunisia) is liable only for engines they sell.
I requested to have in writing the position of Yamaha Motors Japan regarding the policy of their local dealer. Since then they never replied to my mails and I'm taking legal action against Yamaha Motors.
In conclusion, I'm a doctor that purchased a new boat with what is claimed to be state of the art in marine engines. I almost lost my boat twice, service was carried out following the instructions on Yamaha owners manual and I never really enjoyed my boat. Similar failures reported in New Zealand and elsewhere.
Hamadi
El Manar I
Tunisia
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