Leopard warranty ... The pathetic struggle continues
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- čas přidán 22. 08. 2024
- The link to Travel Sketch’s engine rust video:
• New Catamaran Handover...
Part 3 of the repairs to warranty items that we handled after our Atlantic crossing.
We are still having difficulties trying to get our Balmar alternators and Wakespeed regulators to work. Leopard told us to got to their office in Florida to have them repaired by them. Now that we have arrived in the USA they have told us to continue to arrange the repair ourselves and to then submit a refund claim to them. This of course is ridiculous on many levels (1) they sent us to the USA for this (2) we have already tried various contractors to no avail whereas their incumbent contractor at their office in Florida has the required expertise (3) the cost with their contractor will be containable and the result guaranteed…
Additionally, Leopard damaged both our engines and engine rooms, with seawater ingress causing rust on the engine and gelcoat as well as sprayed diesel all over the starboard engine room and into every nook and cranny of the engine. Potentially like Travel Sketch, we should be claiming new engines. Instead we have only asked for a professional clean in the hope of avoiding claiming new engines.
Once again, they are leaving the “finding the contractor” to us to do and then claiming back the cost, regardless that they sent us to Florida on the understanding that they could finish off the work, using expert contractors known to them and ready to jump into action.
It has been difficult dealing with Leopard’s warranty, we have spent the last few months trying to get them to look at and understand the small remaining approvals thereafter they need to shed more bureaucracy and action the repairs and refund. The biggest issue has been the lack of communication. These issues can be experienced on a Leopard 42, Leopard 45 as well. In fact, potentially they could happen on a Lagoon catamaran or Bali catamaran or any yacht. So, if you are planning to go to an upcoming boat show. Especially to see a Leopard catamaran please speak to your yacht broker because most of these are known issues, so we hope this info will be helpful to you in order to avoid drama and disaster during your ocean passages.
We still have issues with our, Raymarine navigation equipment and Flir camera failure. Flir warranty & Raymarine warranty support have been non-existent.
It strange , with all the people having so much issues with Leopard that people still buy them
Top notch business ethics at their finest.
Geez I really feel for you guys , but thanks for alerting us .
I remember watching Russ from Sunrise Sailing with the help of Keith from Zatara putting the heat on Leopard to replace the engines and sail drives on their new 50 .
Engines didn't have anti syphon valves and ingested seawater .
That was 4 yrs ago .
Looks like they have not progressed at all !
They replaced my engine and saildrive that they stuffed up. It was totally unnecessary BS to get it done but they did the right thing in the end by choice after being pushed by "Leopard". They have improved since Russ's situation but still have a long way to go. If Travelopia bought the R&C factory and reshuffled, the situation would be better for everyone IMO.
Great video thanks for posting it 👍👍
oh man, what a headache with leopard!
What a heap of crap of a boat.... Greetings from Tahiti, see you soon!
We bought a new Leopard 48 in 2017. Had it for 3.5 years. Sold it due to just too many build quality issues. R&C’s warranty support was very poor. I would never recommend someone to buy a Leopard catamaran.
Sorry to hear about the ongoing struggles. Hopefully the ultrasonic sensor will work consistently on the waste tank, however, on my last boat it would work, but if the tank was half full and contents sloshed around, poo would get on the sensor and it would read “full” even when tank was empty. So I would need to remove it, clean sensor with a towel, then it would be accurate again. So, I think the ultrasonic might be better for fuel and water (vs waste). Also, perhaps the external tank sensors (impedance) would be best for your plastic tank. Keep the videos coming!!!
Fix it yourself leopard after market service is not good cut your losses fix it yourself and have a good life .
I have watched several new Leopard owners continue to struggle with so called warranty issues
Leopards and lagoons , such crap.
Thank you for sharing your exasperating experiences. It looked at one stage in this saga that the solar output was driving alternator output down. From a purely technical perspective it is pretty fundamental that there is continuity of effort from one competent technician - it appears you have/are providing that function. Hope you have the new alternator pulleys and the cerebo issues resolved now.😀👍⛵️
Guess warranty is still an annual project at least. It pains me to see so many disgruntled owners.
Wow what's going on with Leopard. You are not the first leopard owner with problems!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
they are designed and built as charter boats.
I have a 200 amp 12 volt alternator on my Cummins qsb6.7 connected to a 12 volt lithium battery after 3 years and 1800 hours with no issue and listening to BALMAR and others they all say this is not good, I also have a 300 watt solar panel via a mmpt controller. The victron shunt is used to monitor in and out amps but it is often wrong no matter what comes out is often 10 to 15% lower then what goes in. I would monitor the voltage of each of the cells to verify if all are at the same voltage, you may have a cell or a few cells which are low.
This is scaring me away from R&C a little. Am headed to Annapolis this fall to look at their boats and a couple others.
hehehe alternator blew and backup blown also. It really funny and stupid how people rely on alternators for house power. Ever wonder why boat shops usually have a good supply of alternators. Use alternators to charge you starter battery and engine controls. Use a separate generator to charge house batteries. OR just buy lots of alternators and keep replacing them as you burn em out
Holy cow 85 Celsius is 185 F. That is really hot. I would carry extra alternators. Are the rectifiers on the alternator? Alternators should be 60 Celsius max. Heat destroys alternators. If rectifiers are attached to a wall then you need cooling plates to get them down to 40-60C. Wakespeed I see. I would install a cooling plate behind it. Now if the temp is actually the alternator on the engine expect it to fail. 40-60 Celsius is where it should be.
He doesn't care... the only thing counting is to see the 4.8Kw on the display. Whoever buys the boat afterwards will make it his problem..
Maybe he should add some forced air cooling: Fan + conduit who forces air through and around the alternator. The conduits go to a water-air heat exchanger, which uses sea water to move the heat to the sea.
The problem could be bigger : Heat build-up in the engine room. A sizeable (e.g. 25%) amount of heat is emitted by the surface of an ICE.
New engine mounts by the looks at least. Check the injector threads. Maybe R&C should install a new engine for you so they seal the engine bays properly in future. 🤦♂
Give up with the alternators and fit a generator, you will very soon have two worn out engines running as you have been ,high output alternators are not reliable.
Usually the solar MPTT may operate incorrectly, due to bad fuse connections.
If the voltage from alternator is higher than setting on mppt the mppt will think battery is full only way to do this properly is get a Victron smart shunt . Is measures accuracly
They have a setup with lynx bms so no shunt requires. The bms is the smartshunt. The guy just never bothered to get to know his system nor how it work and he doesn't care nuts about how to manage his batteries or alternators in the long run. Classic case of "I don't care if ut was designed to work like this, I WANT it to work like that!" Childish tantrum I say
Good luck getting a pulley installed, a 4:1 should fix it. For the disappearing display of charging and solar data, check the cable between the Cerbo GX and inverter charger and any other bus cables to MPPT controllers. It might be a cable, connector or be missing a terminator at the Cerbo GX or at the end of the chain of devices.
The usb cable between the hub and cerbo was usb 3.0 type A to B UNAMPLIFIED so signal loss was at hand.. I gues the OP "forgot" to mention this..
@@christophedelay1951 The USB protocols don't allow for long transmission cables, no more than 3 meters (approx. 9 ft) for high speed USB.
They can convert to Gigabit (1,000 Mbps) Ethernet and back again. They are usually used for IP (Internet Protocol) networks, but can used differently.
The problem is you are expecting a floating condo. Of course there is going to be problems. Trying to have all land based lifestyle on a boat that moves a lot.
I rarely do maintenance cause almost nothing ever fails. But I also do not try to live like I do on land.
If you want the comforts of land life, get a house on teh water.
Sorry if this sounds mean, but living on a boat was a way of life, an adventure, not trying to move a house on the water.
You are 3xpecting a small town power supply input and output , thats crazy on any little cat , if your solar goes through a charger , that has limitations , altinator is direct , but slows down , no yacht does what your expecting . Do you run a generator . I had to run a test for the manufactures of a cat to a buyer , just before I crossed the Atlantic, I didn't make it , it blew the system, always easy to take power out , putting it in is the killer . Your expecting to much.
The special Alternators designed by Dr Nigel Calder not only have very large outputs but have been designed to have higher outputs but can produce significant charge at tick over rpm if the motors are not under propulsion load .
They also have built in improved cooling. It may be water cooled.
czcams.com/video/0uTNjfb3MNQ/video.htmlsi=cYC7fpXeNglkpulB
@@clivestainlesssteelwomble7665 fantastic , so why is the boat owner complaining about power, ? It the putting the power into the batteries that is the issue, from 2 sources. Looks like the altinator trips out or over ride the solar, so when your trying to run on max there is a weak link.
@davidwarnes5158 the weak link is the owner and his expectations.. crying because of netflix and starlink cuts throughout the crossing. Oh dear god, why bother to buy a boat?
5 minutes with a spray bottle of Ospho and the rust stains will disappear. You could have avoided a lot of your problems by installing the factory generator. Aftermarket electronics are always going to be more risky as well as harder to fix than the factory items.
If battery is full the mppt will reduce its output . If you increase load mppt should increase
Its hard to feel bad for the kid who has no power on the yacht. Just saying
Sounds like a normal day in south africa... Whats the problem souties?.....
Where to start.. beautifull montage kevin. I supose i could post pictures as well where the system outputs over 12Kw on the alternators but your biased way of acting prevents you from talking good about one person prefering another isn't it? Nevertheless, i tried my best to explain how a victron system works with cerbo/lynx bms regarding CVL (stands for a voltage limit) and why this would impact the wakespeeds and solar. But it seems that you prefer to play victim (let's call it rage-baiting as it is) and shout at the world for things not playing the way you want.
I myself recall telling you yes, the alternators can be overdriven but i prefer the "long run" approach. You should've told me you didn't care sh*t about longevity. But still, do me a favour and read (and do you best to understand) all the documentation and victron manuals i sent you. Maybe you will see the light and understand that what you wish for is not how the system and components have been built.
Just a side question as well, could you explain me why tesla doesn’t use electric razor motors for their cars? Their smaller amd cheaper and can be pushed to output comparable torque(sort of, i know its just an example) ? You might want to try to find the correlation between the question and your whish to have a shoebox-sized alternator do the same as a generator 10 times the size.
Lastly, please remove me from you videos. I never gave consent, and you never even asked me.
Just like Eskom, what's the problem?...
In the description of the video, you mention that all boats have issues - things that break or are not to quality standards and require warranty work.
You're right, but when videos of cracked bulkheads on Lagoon cats came out - Lagoon, albeit reluctantly, not only ensured every person who put out videos showing this happened to their boat were taken care of, which Leopard doesn't seem to be doing, but also Lagoon opened it up to all owners to get a free inspection of their bulkheads, and if needed - have those professionally fixed at their expense. Had Leopard done anything even close to that?
after how long? they didn't do it willingly.