Chines Outboards experience ?

[Vulkyn]

Well haven't seen a lot of opinions regarding these engines. I wanted to know what people's experience with them.

Please share your experience or concerns specially Parsun or HAMC engines (or any other chines outboard for that matter)

I don't know about these engines but I know some of their other tools look amazingly like good ones!

[CatBuilder]

Thankfully, I have no experience with Chinese outboards.

[Wynand N]

Parsun is a Chinese copy of Yamaha....Hearing some good thing about them locally.

[Vulkyn]

Yah Parsan are basically 95% yamaha (so i have read), they have a very aggressive campaign and are found just about any where world wide (UK, Australia, U.S etc..)

Here is their web site
http://www.parsunmarine.com/

HAMC engines are not as wide spread, seams they are limited to operation in china (havent seen them any where else)
here is their web site
http://www.hamarine.com

There are other brands as well but i a have not looked at them yet

[CatBuilder]

I bought a copy of a Yanmar diesel generator once. It was the only Chinese motor product I ever had. It was *great* because it cost about half of what the true Yanmar generator cost. I was very happy when it produced good power.

It lasted about 20 hours before it threw a rod. Being a Chinese generator, there were no aftermarket parts to rebuild the ruined engine.

So, I went and bought a Yanmar based Pramac generator (Italian made) and it ran fine up to hundreds and hundreds of hours.

Moral of the story? I spent 1.5 times the price of the Pramac and had to install a generator twice.

Get something good and save yourself some money.

[Vulkyn]

In the printing industry you can basically get the same product at just about any price range you want, honestly they would ask you how much you want to pay and base their quality and workmanship on the price.

I have Chines machinery that have worked almost close to European equivalent and i have had my luck with machinery that broke down once i installed them.

So for me choosing a brand from china is like going out on a date ..... you really need to get to know the person well else your in for some nasty surprises

[CatBuilder]

Originally Posted by Vulkyn

So for me choosing a brand from china is like going out on a date ..... you really need to get to know the person well else your in for some nasty surprises

I've heard this from Australians as well. They often can't believe Chinese products are seen as low quality in the States.

I think the reason we (in the states) see Chinese products as garbage is because that's the kind we get here. There is usually some greedy middle man (our own citizen or company) who is probably telling the Chinese to build to the lowest standard, then selling here close to the top standard.

It is becoming increasingly difficult here to find anything of quality at all.

Take my boat building plywood for instance. It's very high quality and Lloyd's Register, from Greece. However, I can't get it with equal thickness in the layers no matter how hard I look.

[Vulkyn]

sail outboards

blur's posted is also regarding a SAIL chines outboards (how many outboards do they have lol)

here is their web site

http://www.sailoutboardsusa.com

[pistnbroke]

My local Boat repair yard here in australia was a parsun dealer ..they sold 3 before they gave up ....2 had running problems they could not solve and 1 corroded badly in the salt water ......Now things could have inproved .. They now deal with Tohatsu and love them ...

[Ilan Voyager]

Tohatsu is an old japanese brand. They worked years only for the pro market (mainly fishermen) in Japan. I remember it as rugged, not fancy as a Yamaha or Honda, and virtually unbreakable.

The dealer of Arcachon in France made fortune selling to the fishermen, the kind of guys who know only 2 positions of the throttle, iddle and WOT, and put more than 1000 hours a year on the outboard, like using a 15 HP to push a barge loaded with 5 tons of oysters.

You're true CatBuilder, there are excellent chinese products, but what I see here in Mexico and States is mainly the low end quality sold to DIY people, except some pro machinery. It's changing; Eastwood sells now a good 175 Amp MIG welder with spool gun for 500 USD, and the Northern Tools MIG 135 Amp works nice and lasts for 330 bucks...Grizzly sells also very good chinese tools at decent prices.

Meantime De Walt is getting down: within the last year I bought (industrial line) a drill which failed internally twice (repaired under warranty), and 2 4.5" grinders ; the first failed in 3 days of light job (burnt with smoke and fire, happily I have good differential french breakers, the rear ball bearing failed destroying the plastic carter and the engine short-circuited, the thermal protector failed also and did not cut the electricity. Worst I needed 2 months of struggle to get it replaced under warranty) and the second had a "stroke" after one year of very light duty (defective insulation of the engine).

Bosch is not more Bosch (that happened long time ago), but kept the german prices. And I won't talk of Delta, we are in decent forum. Those brand name tools are made now in China but sold at German prices.

Morality buy Chinese for cheap, or Italian for decent at good price, or German top end like Hilti, or Wurtz if you can afford it. That depends of the budget allowed. But not cheap made, expensively sold tools.

Coming back to outboards Tohatsu (Japanese, not Chinese) is a very reliable brand. I have no info about the others.

[Vulkyn]

Right corrected the Tohatsu part ! !!

Thanks for every one's feedback!!! One of the reason i am asking is that older yamaha models are very popular in Egypt, unfortunately finding spare parts is really difficult for the older the engines (even the new ones).

But what i have seen people do (in other countries) is revive their old Yamaha engines with Parsun parts which is based on older Yamaha designs and are interchangeable (as far as i can tell.)

It is risky i am sure .... but for so many good engines around lacking spare parts it might be an idea to look at it (or just buy persun or similar for that matter).

[Vulkyn]

Originally Posted by pistnbroke

My local Boat repair yard here in australia was a parsun dealer ..they sold 3 before they gave up ....2 had running problems they could not solve and 1 corroded badly in the salt water ......Now things could have inproved .. They now deal with Tohatsu and love them ...

Any ideas on the date? was that a long time ago or recent.

[Ilan Voyager]

The old Yamaha Enduro 2S were pretty strong but really too thirsty. The best was the 85 HP 3 cylinders. Easy to maintain by a careful mechanic as they were pretty simple. Careful mechanic is a very rare animal in Quintana Roo Mexico...but engine killers are abundant.

The old four strokes Yamaha with carburators were very good, even better than the 2 strokes as they have a TBO (time before overhaul) of a solid 2400 hours with a decent gas consumption, while the 2S is about 1000 hours TBO. And no fancy problematic electronics...

Unhappily I have not a clue about the Parsun, I have written to a friend living in Malaysia maybe he will have some infos.

[Vulkyn]

Does any one have any more updates on these engines ?