mercruizer vs. volvo

[pascavone]

I believe your marina like to makes annually repairs on your boat, and if you had bad manifolds, they rather ruin your engine and change the engine to generator continual shop work.

I'm told the mercruiser design on manifolds is poor compared to the volvo.

Mercruiser is based of the GM products, and Volvo is owned by Ford in Britain.

Anyone have both engine and can compare?

[ss3964spd]

It is a shame that some shops will deliberately cause, or fail to prevent, problems. It happens, of course, but no one has any idea how often.

I've read the same, Volvo exhuast systems, as well as Crusader, are designed better than Merc. Nevertheless, each manufacturers' packages have their own quirks.

Correct, Merc bases their gasoline engines on GM products. Incorrect about Volvo though; they also use GM based gasoline engines, as does Crusader. It has been quite some time since anyone has used a Ford engine, or even a Chrysler for that matter.

[pascavone]

I stand corrected..... its a China product now....

Ford Motor Company does not own Volvo anymore as they sold it to Geely automotive of China. When Ford initially acquired Volvo in 1999 they paid 3.86 billion British pounds for it but they sold it for 1.16 billion British pounds in 2010.

[mmwjr]

Hi Pas, as you have found out Ford no longer has ties to Volvo.

For the past ~10 years Volvo has used GM gas engines but addes their own exhaust and fuel system. In talking with a few mechanices they agree that volvo has a better product but since merc has th hold on the US market initial cost, repairs and parts are cheaper for merc. Merc came our with a dry joint system some years ago that has a water tube that bypass the joint between the manifold and riser thus eleminitaing water intrusion at this point which is the most common failure point.

Merc parts are much easier to find as well as aftermarket for them inthe US since they own the market.

In the end it's 50/50 IMHO.

Regarding mechanics not sure, I think some try to save you money but in the end cost you more others who knows, but I think most do the right thing.