So I got the repairs done.

[qprdude]

Yes, same people that I've dealt with for the last three years. Although they must have been concerned for their own jobs after the take-over, they were superb throughout. Stevie Mitchell definitely had concerns about how Ness customers with warranties would be treated, but it looks like any company can turn things round, no matter how poor a reputation they have.

Fully agree about Inverness people mate, they seem to comfortable with themselves, and pleasant to do business with.
(I'm a wee bit biased of course, having finished my career with a couple of years working for The Lubricant Company/Highland Fuels, based in Aberdeen but with the head office in Inverness)

[daviemck2006]

Did Highland fuels used to be Caley oils, or take over Caley oils? We used to get our fuel and lubs from them many years ago in Peterhead for the boat.

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[qprdude]

Couldn't say mate. My job with the lubricant company was mainly in engine lube, gearbox oil and coolants for CNC machines. I used to see Caley oil trucks around the harbours when I was in ship repairs many years ago.

[daviemck2006]

Our old 8 cylinder 500 hp Kelvin engine didn't need any special oils. As long as oil and filters changed regularly then they went forever. One of my uncles with a different boat once snapped a conrod and it smashed a hole in the side of the engine. There are plates on the crankcase where you can unbolt the conrods, the cylinder block is in twos. They u bolted two conrods and got the pistons out the bottom end the the engine ran and took them home without needing towed. Our own boat, we had the engine reconditioned with new pistons liners injectors and bearings, two weeks later the engine started a funny chattering noise but was still running beautifully. We got it checked, engineers said nothing wrong, we worked for a month the noise getting worse until the engineers looked in the bottom of the engine and discovered the crankshaft was broken. I'd like to see a car engine running with a broken crankshaft!

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[qprdude]

I was more used to repairs on 12 cyl. MAK and big Wartsila engines with the occasional Lister-Blackstone on the converted standby boats.
More on the hydraulic side though. Winches and Hydraulic motors and systems. Long time ago now, and I doubt whether I could find my way round an engine room now. The modern supply and anchor handlers are diesel electric and way beyond my meagre experience.

[daviemck2006]

I would be lost in an engine room on a modern fishing boat now. Our boat was built in 1974, had the 500 kelvin for everything. It had a pto on the fore end for the hydraulics and the generator was belt driven off the same pto, and it had a shaft driven bilge pump and gearbox at the aft end. Our auxiliary engine was a 5 hp hand start lister which had an emergency generator and emergency bilge pump and that was it. Modern boats have 3 or 4 quite big engines, the main tends to drive the propeller only, with another big engine for hydraulics only, and one for electric and bilge pumps and another for emergency everything but propeller. And an electrical system that would bamboozle an electrician!

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[demag]

That's a brilliant story. It's so refreshing to hear of a company actually honouring a warranty rather than using every trick in the book to squeeze out of it.
It certainly puts Colliers to shame in Erdington, Birmingham who had two goes at fixing the turbo on my Berlingo in less than 3000 miles and failed dismally on each occasion despite ME telling them about the problems with the turbo oil feed filter.