[seapony2]

Hello Mr. Douglas,

My name is Dick Taylor

I could sure use your guidance.

I am on my fourth Catalina sailboat and have enjoyed them all.
I have an issue with this one and would appreciate your sending me in the right direction for assistance.

I bought Catalina 400 #309 in Annapolis in July 2007 from the original owner.
The engine had 149.4 hours and the Panda 4200 had 26.7 hours Due to our Lake Texoma being flooded I wasn't able to bring the boat to Texas and commission her until early September of 2007.

In June this year the Generator failed. It has 112 hrs.
There is no one on our lake certified on these generators.
I called Panda and after talking to the technical dept. starting chasing fuel problems. After a series of tracing fuel lines, changing filters, changing fuel pump, etc; it turns out to be the governor has backed out.

I have a very experienced Catalina person working with me " Greg Rentfro".
We had talked back and forth with the tech. dept at Panda all day and did not seam to be getting anywhere. I called for the sales dept. and talked to a gentleman named Jeff to see if there were any exchange units available or if there was anything he could do. He said there were no exchange units but that he could probably sell me a new unit for $8000.00.
Greg, then spoke to a gentleman at Farymann and was told that there had been a few instances but rare that this has happened. It requires an engine breakdown to repair.

I know that the boat is out of warranty but I would surely think 112 hours on a generator is barely broken in.

I would hope that Panda might assist but have no idea who to talk to.

BY the way, I had a Catalina 22 # 12469 new and raced spinnaker div. a few years.
The Catalina 34 #13 from the original owner.
A very good fiend of mine still has her.
Then I cruised on a Hinckley 42 for a few years and sold her.
Next was a Catalina 36 #1957 from original owner And now the 400. She is a very nice boat.

Best regards,

Dick

 

[Cruisingdad]

Panda Generator Feedback

Hi All,

I would appreciate any comments from those of you that own or have owned a Panda Diesel Generator.

Was it reliable? Did you have to deal with service? How did service treat you? Did you feel that they supported their product? Would you buy one again?

Thanks.

- CD

 

[svsirius]

There were a few FP generators that had this problem [ I had one], Panda was very accommodating in arraigning a replacement within the warranty period for a new 4200. At this point he really needs to work with Panda and I would go to the head of Service/warranty. But my bet is this unit is 5+ yrs old cause the one I had that failed was installed in 2003/4 ish. I don't have who I worked with handy but it was a few yrs ago in 2006.

contact info is here Fischer Panda Generators: Marine Generators, Diesel Generators, Commercial Generators and Military Generators Manufacturer

Having the serial # is key for any discussion.

 

[negrini]

I didn't understood what Dick was looking for, he just reported his experience and didn't askany specific question/request to this board. How can we be of help sir ?

 

[CharlieCobra]

Wow, the mods jumped on my post for stating the TRUTH? Is Fischer Panda an advertiser here or something?

 

[dohenyboy]

when i bought my boat it had a fp generator in it. It had been constant trouble for the former owners. The FP repair people in town told me they loved the FP as it kept their service department constantly occupied. I replaced it

 

[SteveInMD]

I've heard of past problems, but I have a FP 4200 Plus built in 2006 that has run like a top since installed. At this point I'd buy another.

 

[seapony2]

Thank you all for the comments.
what I am looking for is suggestions and past experiences.
This unit was obviously built durring a time that they had some problems.
I am sure most got fixed under warranty. Mine had not been used much until I bought the boat and now this issue with the govenor has come to light at 112 hours. I would like to know if others have been successful getting FP to participate in the repairs and if so to whom did they talk to .

Seapony2

 

[Zanshin]

I had a 4200 with no problems on the last boat (it had been used quite a bit before I bought it as it was a charter boat). The current genset is a 5000 and it works quite well, the only issue that I have with it is that the maximum output is less than the rated output - I've been told that I should clean the injector but I haven't gotten around to that yet. I ordered a spares kit from them on yesterday morning and received it in the mail today.

 

[bubb2]

This may be of interesting reading for you.
Fischer Panda: The Final Chapter

 

[JeffTill]

Mr. Taylor,
We have Grandpappy Point 903-465-6330 in Denison, Texas and Cedar Mills Marina 903-523-4222 in Gordonville, Texas both are very close Lake Texoma. You can speak to anyone in either of their service departments and they should be able to help you. If this is not the avenue you would like to pursue, the offer I made to you when we spoke on the phone is still valid. If you would like to send the unit to our location in Florida we will fix the governor free of charge.

Also, if you would like to use your current mechanic feel free to have him give our service a department a call as you have in the past. Our service department offers free support and can instruct your technician on how to do the repair. They can be reached at 800-508-6494 Mon-Fri 8:00-5:00pm ET.

I left a message on your home phone so feel free to give me a call or email. I would be happy to assist you in fixing your generator.

Jeff Till
Fischer Panda Generators
954-462-2800
[email protected]

 

[seapony2]

Thanks Jeff
all I understood was $8000
I will get back to you and thank you
I think thatboffer is admirable

seapony2

 

[seapony2]

Folks I appreciate all your input.
I did send a email to Mr Rushton yesterday and of course you see the reply from Mr. Till.
I have been contacted by the service manager and I will remove the unit and send to Panda at my expense. They have agreed to fix the unit if it a mfg. default. We'll see what happens. It will probably be 30days or so but I will post results.

SeaPony2

 

[svHyLyte]

Three Cheers for FP!!

We have had a FP 4.2 FW Cooled unit aboard s/v HyLyte since the spring of 2002 and have had good experience with the unit and very good experience with the boys at FP, in particular Jeff Till and Bob Grubert in the service department. Both of these young men have gone out of their way to help us l-o-n-g after our unit was out of warranty. The only problems we've had with our Panda were the result of my own misunderstandfing of the maintenance regime necessary to keep her humming along; or, a manufacturing defect in a pump built by Johnson Pump that Panda could not have known of until it failed (but that Mr. Grubert kindly replaced at no cost to me 7-years after we bought our unit!) or, a failed capacitor caused by the original installer who did not follow the explicit installation instructions (he mounted the controller box sideways rather than vertical) which Mr. Till suggested in the first 3 minutes on the phone with me and proved true.

The Panda is a precision machine--perhaps too precision for the application--but, properly cared for (per the manufacturers instructions) it will provide years of reliable service. Unfortunately, it seems that only unhappy owners are willing to express an opinion in such threads but I believe in giving credit where credit is due so I am speaking up here.

The other morning we had a power outage. With that we trooped over to the yacht, fired up the Panda, and had a comfortable--air conditioned--morning doing boat chores. At one point during the moring our neighbor came over with an extension cord asking "...may we borrow a few amps?". In short order out unit was powering two yachts but still well with its routine operating limit.

Spend the money to send the unit over to Panda. Let the boys fix it properly. Take the (free) course that Panda offers on maintenance--normally offered at either the Ft. Lauderdale or Miami Boat show--and then do the maintenance and you, and your Panda, will be happy campers.

FWIW...

s/v HyLyte

 

[Cruisingdad]

We have had a FP 4.2 FW Cooled unit aboard s/v HyLyte since the spring of 2002 and have had good experience with the unit and very good experience with the boys at FP, in particular Jeff Till and Bob Grubert in the service department. Both of these young men have gone out of their way to help us l-o-n-g after our unit was out of warranty. The only problems we've had with our Panda were the result of my own misunderstandfing of the maintenance regime necessary to keep her humming along; or, a manufacturing defect in a pump built by Johnson Pump that Panda could not have known of until it failed (but that Mr. Grubert kindly replaced at no cost to me 7-years after we bought our unit!) or, a failed capacitor caused by the original installer who did not follow the explicit installation instructions (he mounted the controller box sideways rather than vertical) which Mr. Till suggested in the first 3 minutes on the phone with me and proved true.

The Panda is a precision machine--perhaps too precision for the application--but, properly cared for (per the manufacturers instructions) it will provide years of reliable service. Unfortunately, it seems that only unhappy owners are willing to express an opinion in such threads but I believe in giving credit where credit is due so I am speaking up here.

The other morning we had a power outage. With that we trooped over to the yacht, fired up the Panda, and had a comfortable--air conditioned--morning doing boat chores. At one point during the moring our neighbor came over with an extension cord asking "...may we borrow a few amps?". In short order out unit was powering two yachts but still well with its routine operating limit.

Spend the money to send the unit over to Panda. Let the boys fix it properly. Take the (free) course that Panda offers on maintenance--normally offered at either the Ft. Lauderdale or Miami Boat show--and then do the maintenance and you, and your Panda, will be happy campers.

FWIW...

s/v HyLyte

Great report. Thanks for your thoughts. I too have owned a Panda without issues. It also appears that they are taking care of customers afterwards - which is what is critical.

Take care and thanks to all involved.

- CD

 

[seapony2]

generator repaired

I received my generator back from Panda yesterday.
I hope to install it on Nov. 12th or 13th.

I am happy to give Panda a thumbs up on response to the thread on Sailnet.
It turns out the initial problem was a bad govenor. However durring the months of trying to locate the problem we had apparantly damaged the injector pump durring a reinstallation of it in trying to follow the tech department's instructions. There was also a small hole in the exhaust manifold. Jim Gagnon also told me the rear seal was leaking and that was repaired. My thanks and appreciation goes out to Mr. Till and James Gagnon the service manager for taking care of the issues. I am looking forward to many years of use from the unit.

Thanks to the sailnet comunity for the different inputs and again a thumbs up for Fischer Panda.

S/V
SeaPony2

 

[tdw]

Wow, the mods jumped on my post for stating the TRUTH? Is Fischer Panda an advertiser here or something?

I'd just like to say that Charlie's original post was deleted in error. An attempt was made to merge two Fischer Panda threads into one and the post in question disappeared during the merge. It was not intentional.

 

[CharlieCobra]

Nice to see FP come through for a customer.

 

[seapony2]

re-installed

We installed the unit this past Friday.
After the bleeding exercise she started up, ran perfectly.
I put eight hours of loaded use on it this weekend and at this time no problems. When I bought the boat she had 12 hours on it and did not sound nearly as good then as does now. You can barely tell when you add load.

As most of you know, the boat even looks different when everything works!

Seapony2

 

[lyonscmpy]

i have had 2 4200 fisher pandas and am dissatisfied