ecotech Vortech MP40 problems!

marc49127 · May 17, 2013

So I have had my MP40 for a little over a year with no problems to speak of. When I took it apart to clean some growth off of it. I noticed that there was a little play in the shaft prop area. So I ordered a maintenance kit from from ecotech marine and installed it. When I was installing the new spacer into the old bearing which they didn't supply in the maintenance kit. The spacer fit too tight into the old bearing. So I polished it up a bit to get it to turn smoother. Got it to turn better but a little bit of drag. Put it into the tank fired it up and all was good for about five minutes. The spacer locked up in the old bearing and spun in the housing completely damaging the wetside housing. Emailed them the next day and after twelve emails they decided that it must have been a manufacturing default and they sent me a return slip. Sent it back and there tech decided that it was lack of cleaning because there was some coraline on it or incorrect pin spacer settings. My question was how would the algae affect it when it ran flawlessly for a year and a half and then all the sudden when I put there new spacer in it only ran for five minutes! He basically called me a liar and that he wanted more money to rebuild it with spare parts he had from other peoples powerheads! Needless to say I am not very happy with ecotech marines vortech MP40 customer service!!!! I'm glad there are other brands on the market!

jduck · May 17, 2013

marc49127 said:
So I have had my MP40 for a little over a year with no problems to speak of. When I took it apart to clean some growth off of it. I noticed that there was a little play in the shaft prop area. So I ordered a maintenance kit from from ecotech marine and installed it. When I was installing the new spacer into the old bearing which they didn't supply in the maintenance kit. The spacer fit too tight into the old bearing. So I polished it up a bit to get it to turn smoother. Got it to turn better but a little bit of drag. Put it into the tank fired it up and all was good for about five minutes. The spacer locked up in the old bearing and spun in the housing completely damaging the wetside housing. Emailed them the next day and after twelve emails they decided that it must have been a manufacturing default and they sent me a return slip. Sent it back and there tech decided that it was lack of cleaning because there was some coraline on it or incorrect pin spacer settings. My question was how would the algae affect it when it ran flawlessly for a year and a half and then all the sudden when I put there new spacer in it only ran for five minutes! He basically called me a liar and that he wanted more money to rebuild it with spare parts he had from other peoples powerheads! Needless to say I am not very happy with ecotech marines vortech MP40 customer service!!!! I'm glad there are other brands on the market!

I've had issues with the wet drive shaft(spacer) not fitting into the ceramic bearing correctly. Lucky I had 3 wet sides that I was using the maintenance kits for. Was able to play with them until I got all of them to work properly. Then a few weeks later the magnets split on them. They were all original gen 1 wet sides, sent them in and received 3 new ones. Sounds like the too much friction between the spacer and ceramic bearing. If over tightened when reassembled, the ceramic bearing could cause the center of the wet frame to crack, or to strip the slots that holds it in place. (Had that happen before as well) . Post your issue up on RC under the Ecotech Marine Sponsor forum. Typically they take care of the issue pretty quickly.