Tohatsu

[lots of boats]

I have owned about 75 outboard motors, over many years and many thousands of hours. Nine of the most recent have been tohatsu 90 TLDI, of those nine four of the most recent have failed due to detonation. Tohatsu blames us. They offered no warranty repairs and had no blocks available for repairs either. They say the cause is poor fuel, bad oil, wrong pitch user error etc. No warranty allowed. The four that failed were all close in serial number. Two were used in one type of application by one person, two others that failed were used by other operators, different loads, different boats. There is no detonation sensor on these motors. It wasn't the same cylinder every time. Two of the motors had the rod come through the side of the block when the piston stuck and the rod broke. One of the motors had the rod almost cut the block in half, smash the air pump and the vapor seperator, cut an oil line catch fire and blow up. The first five 90TLDI are all running, all in the same applications as the last four that all failed. My latest guess is that the injectors are leaning out. I have heard of other similar recent failures. Has anyone else had this problem and found the cause?

 

[TOHATSU GURU]

Re: Tohatsu

You are literally the only person in all the world to have these problems....Seriously, the only person. I know this isn't what you want to hear, but whatever is causing this may really be peculiar to your specific application. It may be a combination of different factors in your usage that by themselves are harmless but in total are causing the engines to go boom. I would suggest you take the engines into a different dealer and see if you get a different opinion as to cause as Tohatsu is relying on your present dealer's descriptions to determine liability. Basically your present dealer can't tell Tohatsu that part X caused the problem so Tohatsu does not have a rational reason to believe that the product had a defect. That leaves them with the old "its got to be something you did" response.

 

[lots of boats]

Re: Tohatsu

Thanks for the reply,

Yes, that is exactly what Tohatsu said. The problem with the idea that we somehow jinxed the motors is that when I started looking around and asking questions on my own, I found there were a few others not very far away that had 90TLDI melt downs and other tohatsu problems. I have a whole list of other things that went wrong with all nine motors that I will save until a later time. In our business the common thread is that the motors died. Different people were running the boats with a variety of applications, and the fuel came from three different sources. All the four motors that died were 2006 and newer. Most of them didn't make 50 hours. Four of the older 90TLDI's that I bought earlier have accumulated about 2500 hrs. with no top end failures. Also we have a whole bunch of other motors, mostly Yamaha that are in commercial use now doing the same things we were asking the Tohatsu's to do, with the same props, using the same fuel etc. I have been all through this with the NA Tohatsu sales rep., they are defensive, they said tough luck. Most of the problems I heard about resulted in the owners just saying they had enough of Tohatsu/Nissan. So the reason I came to this forum is to find out whether anyone has found a specific problem with the top end of these motors. For instance, the injectors may lean out the mix at high throttle setting. Before the days of knock sensors I saw many snowmobile meltdowns from lean mixture. I can, and will walk away from this brand of motor, but the Tohatsu guys don't want to treat this as a situation where their motors will not do what other brands of motors will do. My choices are to slam Tohatsu, or to say, well, I may be the worst case scenario for that company, but they should learn from this. The first thing they haven't figured out is that the internet has changed the way that big corporations deal with customers, there are no secrets. Anyway, lets get to specifics, where other users can offer insight and information, for instance who makes Tohatsu injectors, where else are they used in two stroke engines with, or without detonation sensors?

 

[TOHATSU GURU]

Re: Tohatsu

What did your local dealer, who did the inspection, indicate as the source of the problem?

 

[lots of boats]

Re: Tohatsu

Hello Tohatsu Guru

The whole Tohatsu crowd from the national sales mangager on down says that we the customer are the source of the problem. And my guess is that you know who I am and I know who you are. However, the mechanical evidence is that four new motors, from 2006 and 2007 apparently had the top of the piston melt off from detonation caused by either poor fuel, wrong pitch prop, bad oil, or any reason other than motor defect. The whole issue went far beyond the local dealer. The only common thread here are the motors. Two motors used petro canada fuel, two had american fuel from union oil. We ran a whole bunch of Yamaha's on the same fuel types and have done so for decades. The oil used in Yamaha's and the four older 90TLDI that are happily accumulating hours of hard use is the same as used in the four that died. Two of the four that died were on a light skiff, one at a time, light load, variable operators, (one of those went within a year of purchase and Tohatsu refused to honor any warranty). The other two that died were on a work skiff, tandem, being asked to do some work. Each time the motor that was in tandem failed the rod also broke and came through the block. Each time the motors were pitched for 5700 RPM and throttled back. The only other time I had piston failure was in 1986. I went through two merc 150 V6 blocks on a work boat from detonation. It turned out that this was a defect, the waterjacket/head wasn't big enough and they did change the design because there wasn't enough cooling. This is what I think is going on, either the mix is too lean because of the injectors, or there is a combination of factors caused by lean mix and no cooling from fuel evaporation or too little cooling available. The reason I focused on the injectors is that the older models have survived.

And by the way, I am not the only person in this area, or world wide with Tohatsu problems. Comments like I am the only person in the world with a problem are both not true and don't belong on an internet forum like this. Internet forums are information exchanges, if there is a unique issue, then there will be no exchange. If you work for Tohatsu then you should identify yourself, if not, then be specific about the topic. Thanks.

 

[25-06]

Re: Tohatsu

I was considering one of these outboards myself, down the road, but I see this as poor customer service, at least from what is represented here. I must reconsider.

 

[TOHATSU GURU]

Re: Tohatsu

I think everyone knows who I am as all you have to do is click on my web page I have no idea who you are. Frankly, I don't care. My only concern is why you didn't answer my question and instead launched into another abusive tirade about your alleged failures. I'll ask the question again to make it easy for you.

What did your local dealer, who did the inspection, indicate as the source of the problem?

And while you may think there are other people who are having problems like yours I can testify that there are not or I would know about it. We have not had a single failure brought into us on a TLDI power head and I sell way too many engines not to run into a systemic problem if one exists. Has someone, somewhere in the world had a failure? Sure they have. As solid as Tohatsu is they have their share of problems just like every other brand. And just like every other brand, the blame can generally be laid at the feet of the operator. You may have a legitimate beef or maybe you don't. But whatever problems you have they are unique to you. At least statistically they are unique to you.

Now if you want to give me your name and permission to access your service records I'll be happy to look into your case and see what Tohatsu thinks about your case(s). I have a vested interest in the good name of Tohatsu (regardless of where you are) and if I think there is any merit to your case I will be happy to throw my goodwill your way. Of course, if there is no merit to your case I will certainly point out to you, publicly, as to why.

 

[TOHATSU GURU]

Re: Tohatsu

I withdraw my offer to review your case. After reading your posts, where you bash the Tohatsu product repeatedly, I can fully understand why Tohatsu would not offer to help you.

 

[lots of boats]

Re: Tohatsu

No sweat.

I am just beginning to tell people about the many problems these motors have and about the way Tohatsu treated me. We use outboard motors mostly for work. These newer 90TLDI motors wouldn't do the work. What needs to be remembered is that all mechanical stuff fails, and the products that survive do so because the people that make that product look at the failures objectively and learn. Tohatsu treated us as though we don't know how to operate motors, ignoring the fact that half of the Tohatsu's we have, do work, and half failed, and also we have a whole bunch of other motors doing the same jobs that have never failed. So, calm down, I can see from your posts that you have a lot of outboard motor knowledge, and you have a lot more time than I do to make posts, but these Tohatsu motors are just one product, not the best, not the worst, not worth getting steamed up about.

I will keep posting specific problems that I have had with Tohatsu motors and I am far from finished. I may even answer some general questions to help people. In the meantime I am still telling the Tohatsu people that they had lots of time to deal with this and making the point that internet forums have drastically changed the way the world communicates.

Here is a question. I was told that the 90 TLDI blocks are the same as the old carb 90 blocks, i.e there was no redesign of block cooling, water passages in the head etc. I can figure this out, but you may know, and this relates to one reason why the 90 TLDI's of mine, and others have failed.

Cheers

 

[TOHATSU GURU]

Re: Tohatsu

No soup for you. The minute you began bashing the product in other people?s posts I lost the desire to assist you in anyway. Whether or not you have a legitimate gripe about your own engines I can't say. I suspect you don't, but, I'm not privy to your records and it is certainly possible that one or more of your engines failed due to causes not of your own making. But when you intentionally tried to damage the reputation of a product the way you have here you lost all credibility with me. Internet forum/blog blackmail is a despicable tactic. Regardless of your experience with Tohatsu, resorting to a smear campaign is pathetic. I'm truly sorry you had a problem(s), but if you want any information about Tohatsu product you need to ask someone else. Your bowl will forever be dry.

 

[JB]

Re: Tohatsu

No more.

Unless we can get a fair hearing and Tohatsu's point of view on this, this is closed.