Volvo Penta Fuel Pumps

[jmb23802]

I have read here and there about VP owners with fuel injected boats from the first decade of the 2000 model years having problems with their fuel pumps going bad. In some cases, the pumps had some paint on them inside that would flake off when exposed to fuel and the paint would cause the pump to go bad. From my readings, these pumps apparently are not cheap and can cost you closer to $1k for just the parts alone to replace from what I have heard. I have even read of some owners replacing these pumps multiple times for the same cause.

I was looking around at newer boat options and the options available that I liked were fuel injected VP's. At this point I prefer VP's over Merc's for my own personal reasons, but may reconsider if it means throwing $1k at a fuel pump on a regular basis.

Can anyone shed any light on this? How widespread is this problem? Has VP fixed the problem? If the issue has been fixed, are the old painted pumps still commonly found in parts bins? Are there certain years of VP's that were especially impacted by this problem that I should watch for?

 

[evantful]

Early on these pumps, as you stated, had a paint peeling problem because for whatever reason the pumps were painted on the inside also. At the time the problem was only made worse by the fact that the pumps themselves were not intended to be serviceable separately of the fuel cell. Thus you had to buy a whole new fuel cell assembly.

As time went on, handier folks disassembled the pumps and were able to clean them and eventually were able to cross reference the original Carter pump models for the low and high side, replacing them without buying a whole new cell.

Also Volvo revised the pump design to eliminate the paint on the inside. Also I believe currently Volvo also now provides the pumps as separate service items so now if the pumps do fail (which since the revisions don't fail at a greater frequency) they can be replaced much more inexpensively.

I wouldn't be to concerned about the issue anymore, It may happen once if it still has the original fuel assembly, but even then your talking about 15-17YO fuel pumps which would probably be needing replacing as good measure anyway

 

[BRICH1260]

I`ve had two different VP fuel pumps on different boats with fuel injected engines, neither have had a fuel pump issue. Knock wood. If you find a boat that you like with a VP engine, I would not shy away from it because of fuel pump fears. Even if you do eventually have problems parts are more prevalent now, even directions on how to clean and re-use are available. Prices on new have also come down if you shop around and replacing the entire system is even something that you could do easily if you needed to.

 

[jmb23802]

I'm glad to hear I don't have much to worry about. Thanks for the replies.

 

[dacarter]

My 03 didn't have the paint problem or any other problem with the fuel pump in the 4 years I've owned it, until a couple of weeks ago when I tried to use it. Whining HP pump and no power under load. It finally hit me. I bought a new HP pump for about 250, but now I'm worried that my LP pump is bad and I've wasted the money on the HP pump. Not sure I would say avoid VP because of this, but it does seem like a design flaw and parts are pricey!