Am I the only one suffering from engine failure anxiety?

[Krumelur]

I'm only half joking. I think I bought a boat in pretty decent condition and this is confirmed by the surveyor. The engine had regular maintenance (oil, gear box oil, saildrive etc.). Still, it has 4.800 hours on it. It's running like a champ, no smoke, no excessive heat, starts immediately. No indication that anything would be wrong.

Here's the thing: I have an almost 40 years old Volkswagen Beetle. I has a 30 yo 1600ccm engine with 50HP. I have absolutely no worries that it would fail severely. Sure, it's leaking oil here and there and sometimes it refuses to start immediately. I'm pretty sure it has done more hours at higher revs.

Why am I so much more concerned about the Volvo? I'm tempted to take it out and have it fully maintained. We're talking serious money here. I don't think it would make sense, other than making me feel better. But better what for? I probably shouldn't feel bad about it to begin with. :-)
Is this just a matter of getting to know each other, just like I know every screw and crackling sound my beetle makes?

Has anybody else experienced this after buying a new boat? I'm curious :-)
Has your engine failed you in a way that it would literally stop from one second to the next?
To be clear: I'm not anxious for being unable to navigate. I could deal with the situation.

It's what would follow after a failure: find a workshop, get the engine out, have it fixed or replaced, put it back in.

Again: ask me to replace the engine of the beetle. 2 hours of work on a sunny afternoon.

I think I can answer my own question. It's the unknown that's making me anxious. I gotta learn to deal with it. I'm weird. 

[IslandAlchemy]

You've always got sails you know.

[Krumelur]

Yeah, like I wrote: It's not about the failure itself but the things to follow with regards to repairing it. :-)

[symphony2]

Roughly half way through its design life for the basic engine. Rarely do engines actually wear out, it is the electrics and the marinising cooling bits that give problems. Your engine with those hours is a better bet than the typical weekend user who does maybe 150 hours a year of constant stop start, not getting up to temperature and running on light loads - then left for long periods doing nothing. I ran a 37 with a 2030 as a charter boat. 3500 hours in 7 years with no problems apart from an alternator. Ran as well at the end as at the beginning.

[geoff]

My engine [md22] is now 21 years old. It has been rebuilt under warranty [smoke] is on its 3rd cam belt [not a worry for most Volvo engines] the heat exchange elbow has been cleaned out 3 times, injectors never touched nor the pump. The only non routine replacements have been 1 freshwater cooling pump [leaky] 1 engine oil pump [leaky but I could not find where from]. It really comes down to routine maintainance  and knowing the catastrophic failure prone bits. In the case of my engine my nagging concern is a corrosion breach in the heat exchange  which would produce hydraulic lock and Goodnight Vienna MD22. Geoff

[Yngmar]

Same MD22 as Geoff, same age. No problems and has never let us down. Well, once a faulty VSR resulted in a low starter battery and once the raw water intake was blocked with a plastic bag, heard the change in sound immediately and shut it down before even the impeller got damaged.

Oh, the PCV valve got stuck once and started vacuuming oil out of the crank case, but that's fixed now and it didn't stop it from running.

If you can rebuild a VW engine, you can do it with your boat engine too - they're not magical, despite what the prices might suggest! ;-)

Only difference are the flimsy heat exchangers which like to corrode and the general presence of seawater, which will make  you an expert in removing seized and broken off bolts! 

[nightowle]

Krumelur,

I can appreciate the feelings of wariness.  I've had them, too.  But the longer I've had the engine and gotten a feel for it - the more I'm comfortable knowing it can go the distance, even with a couple of minor fixes and maintenance needed so far.

[Krumelur]

Thanks for the kind words nightowle!

[kavok]

Your engine as done a lot of work, 4800 hours.
I think could be the moment to dismount it from the boat for a general overhaul from good Volvo Penta center.

[SYJetzt]

Don't worry about 4800 hours. The holy grail for our engines is sufficient cooling, enough motor oil and diesel. If your engine has plenty of all, it will be  far better than the wicked beetle engines, which cooled the engine with buckets of gasoline! Its always a good idea to add analogue intruments for oil pressure and water temperature
I had an old mercedes transporter with 65HP, which i bought with 360.000km and sold with 650.000 km, and the engine still running fine. For all external components of our VP's the are still cheap aftermarket parts, so why worry?
If you want to know the state of your engine, perform a compression test on all cylinders. If all cylinders hat +/-20% the same compression values, you have a healthy engine.

[symphony2]

Your engine as done a lot of work, 4800 hours.
I think could be the moment to dismount it from the boat for a general overhaul from good Volvo Penta center.

4800 hours in 12 years (400 a year) is good for the engine - much better than the typical "weekend" yachtsmen who typically does less than half that . That is the sort of annual hours my charter boat did without any problems and was running as well when I sold it as it was when it was new. No reason at all to spend any money on "overhauling" it - provided the cooling system is in good shape and the oil is changed regularly it will just keep running.