When buying a used [boat] outboard engine made after about 2005 you can get a technical report on the engine like below simply by plugging a laptop into the engine and running the diagnostics:

(this is a simple report… a more detailed one is available)

I do wonder why we blindly rely upon the miles a car has covered when there is so much more information available that would give a good indication of what sort of life the engine (and hence the car) has lived.

If only there was some sort of an on board diagnostics system, an OBD if you like.

Oh, wait, there is but everything useful is hidden behind proprietary protocols.

Boils my piss as well, I see no reason why it has to be this way either other than greed.

your boats battery needs a charge…

“Idle Time” and “Trolliing Time” is the data STW has collected on you to sell you your prospective employers

ODB

I’m sure he was a fine mechanic, but I’m sorry to say, I think he’s dead.

But does that actually tell you any more than the mileage? And doesn’t give any indication whether it’s a narrowbaoat owned by a retired couple and serviced every 3rd time they use it (glazed cylinder boars from running at low throttle openings for it’s entire life) or a wakeboard boat that’s done nothing other than tow 4 fat scousers up and down Llandudno seafront at full throttle with several barrels of water onboard for ballast and left with seawater in the cooling system.

You have to drill down deeper into the data to find out how fat the scousers are

glazed cylinder boars

Mmmm, glazed pork.

Freudian slip, I’m on a diet 😢

But does that actually tell you any more than the mileage?

Well, yes it does. Mileage can be anything – it could be spent crawling through slow stop/start traffic all day every day, or it could be constantly on the motorway getting nice a warm.

doesn’t give any indication whether it’s a narrowbaoat owned by a retired couple

Obvs a 225hp engine isn’t going to be used like this.

glazed cylinder boars from running at low throttle openings for it’s entire life

No because you can look at the time spent at various throttle openings to determine how it’s been used. (IAB Time is when the IAb valve opens which on this engine is about 4000rpm).

So you can look at the report and deduce what/how the engine’s been used. You could do the same for a car.

Oh, wait, there is but everything useful is hidden behind proprietary protocols.

Boils my piss as well, I see no reason why it has to be this way either other than greed.

Nothing more than greed and anti-tamper legal requirements for emissions control equipment in most markets.

Oh, wait, there is but everything useful is hidden behind proprietary protocols.

But there’s nothing stopping a dealer getting the information as they have the right software.

So you can look at the report and deduce what/how the engine’s been used. You could do the same for a car.

Ok but the point remains, what are you going to do with this information?

Most engines seem to outlive the car’s they’re attached to.

Take my OH’s utterly thrashed Fiesta as a prime example, it probably had about the hardest life you could conceive, doing years of a 3 mile commute, then years of a ‘fast’ motorway commute (she seems to view motorway speed limits as the minimum acceptable speed to be doing in the fast lane). It’s a tiny engine that’s been revved to death and frequently run with so little oil that the dipstick is dry. And the heater only works on 4, so over the winter it probably never actually warms up.

It’s had at least 3 MOT’s where the list of failures has been uneconomical relative to it’s value (i.e. where a sensible person might just have bought another one), even a set of branded tyres exceeds it’s scrap value, but it still soldiers on burning about 100ml oil/month on her 4000rpm motorway commute with a cold engine.

So the engine is still working fine, despite probably every one of those 145,000 miles being in some way “bad”.

Compare that to the saga of Molgrips Passat, which I get the impression is driven with a smidgen more mechanical sympathy.

What you can do is get an engine oil analysis done – it is an affordable and available service
this could tell you about all kinds of things that could be trouble ahead.
Very much worth it for any high value purchase, or problem engine type.

Okay, I see your fancy report, but (like mileage on a car) how do you know that wasn’t copied and pasted from the laptop twenty minutes before you got there? Is that information hackable? Not having a dig, don’t know the answer myself.

Okay, I see your fancy report, but (like mileage on a car) how do you know that wasn’t copied and pasted from the laptop twenty minutes before you got there? Is that information hackable? Not having a dig, don’t know the answer myself.

I’m sure there are efforts to stop this (as with car mileage) but anything is hackable.

The only real back up with car mileage is you can view historic MOTs and service receipts to check mileage, but if it’s been done systematically even this won’t work (i.e. it protects you from a crooked dealer but not from crooked previous owners who are thorough). In reality it’s enough but there are plenty of places that will perform a mileage “correction” for you.

Well obviously you don’t. You have to trust that the dealer hasn’t faked everything… or you can get a report done elsewhere.
But the point is that all this information is logged by the car (plus lots more than on that ^ simple report) – it seems odd that we simply look at the mileage which doesn’t mean a lot.

Is that information hackable?

On the ECU? Basically not.

I do wonder why we blindly rely upon the miles a car has covered

Can you imagine how many threads it would spawn on here alone along the lines of “We Buy Any Car won’t because I drive like a dick” and “bangernomics, is this print out bad for £400?”

There are devices easily available which fit between the Main ECU and Dashboard – which will
show a lower mileage on the dashboard , it is spotable as the Car diagnostics will have the correct mileage – but MOT and non dealer service will not spot it unless looking for it.
Of course they target BMW/Mercedes/Audi as that is where the best return for fraud exists.

Is that information hackable?

On the ECU? Basically not.

really? – its not perminantly written data – see Remaps for instance.

I can edit the (previously entered) service data on my system on certain cars…. and im not tech savvy. Someone who reads the matrix could make it say what ever it wants.

glazed cylinder boars from running at low throttle openings for it’s entire life

you also get this from other issues, blow by, crap fuel, injector fouling ..

If you get a report on a Porsche before buying (and I recommend that you do!) – then its usual to get a report on the engine like this

One of the things they look for (on a manual) is over revs which can obviously have a bad effect on the life of the engine. This is the kind of thing that can limit the warranty people are happy to offer.

I assume this is true for other brands but only have personal experience with Porsche

(you could buy an automatic – they cant be over-revved!_

Most of the Boat/Motorboat reports exist because they don’t log mileage and therefore some other form of service record/certificate of authenticity must exist.

ECU hacking is fairly easy to do on most cars, the software exists to hack the information because dealerships worldwide have access to the data held within the vehicle. It’s not difficult to apply the same tech from those systems and clone some software that can be applied to the/any vehicle.

But whats that going to say? “spent most of its life in Sainsburys carpark just off J5 of the M1/recorded top speed of 43.3333333mph on the A34 between the M4 and Abingdon”

Altering mileage and service interval information is already a thing, you can all up pretty much anyone who advertises “Mileage correction” who has the latest tech to do such a thing.

If you also ran a query asking how many times the clutch was used, would that tell you if it was nearly due for replacement, or that the dual mass centrifugal flywheel was about to kark it?

Probably not.

I’m not sure any of the information would be of any use in reality. A good old fashioned compression check, smell the oil off the dipstick and check it’s colour and level, along with looking at how worn the pedals and seat are and shut lines/gaps are still likely to be the best units of measure.

I don’t think my two Merc 6hp Sail outboards, both new a couple of years ago are going to give any of the info above, so maybe only applies to the big jobbies

My Volvo Vida/dice (thanks to another forumite) reads everything on our car.
I can even turn up the heated seats, adjust all dorts, and pull part numbers off everything, full fault history complete with diagrams and dealer service / maintenance instructions.

Depends on your car.

@matt_outandabout tell me more.

Recently picked up an xc60 and the heated seats get nowhere near as warm as my old astra.

Being able to turn them up would be good.