Konrad's- Been any Failures??
 

I have always thought the Konrad was a great rock solid drive up to about 800hp. I have a friend who blew up his TRS drives and wants to replace with merc 3a's or 5's. I told him to go with the Konrads and call Biggus if he needed info. He said he has checked with various sources and has found out there have been several failures and some OEM's will not offer them. Does anyone know the real truthabout the drive. I still think it is the best replacement for the trs, but he is now gun shy, Kurt what is the real story.

Buddy O. The guy that was making all the noise two weeks ago was not 100% truethfull about his situation.

First sure there have been failures of the drive. Some guys just don't know how to drive a boat, others are running the thing thinking that it is a number 6 drive.

This drive is NOT a replacement for a number 6!! It is a replacement of your TRS drive or Bravo drive. I think that anyone that is honest can see that this drive is superior to both those drives. I know guys that have blown up multiple TRS drives and have yet to blow a Konrad.

The guy that was making all the stink a couple weeks ago was running HUGE power into the drive. He claimed that he was only running just over 800hp. He has a single engine 32 Sunsation from what I know. I have ridden in a 32 with twin modified 500hp's and the boat went 93. He was claiming those numbers not even at WOT!! This was a quad rotor BIG motor. He was told from the onset that he would NOT have a warrantee and said that he was OK with that.

Second he modified the drive. He felt that he was a better engineer then Konrad was and he changed the steering. The part of the drive that failed was directly connected to the part of the drive that the steering attaches to. The cap loosened up from what it looked like from the pictures that he posted and then the shimming on the gear went all to crap.

Now I know that if I modify my Ford steering that not only will Ford not honor the steering warrantee but more then likely they will not honor ANY of it.

Now that being said Konrad STILL gave him some releif on the repair even after they told him initially that he would get no warrantee, even that guy agreed that he was told that. They paid for half of the repair. They also upgraded his gears!! The upgrade of the gear option I know from when I purchased mine was over 2,000 and he paid 2600 for the total repiar!!

I am not aware of any of the details of any other failures but I do know that they claim to have a few aplications running over 1000hp. That is impressive for a TRS/Bravo replacement.

As for OEM's not wanting to use it I understand that. Mercury has the name and marketing behind it. Mercury is the easy sell. The Manufacturer does not have to pay for the repair Mercury does so honestly they want to put on the boat what they think is the easy sell. That is with out a doubt Mercury. You hear nothing from Weisman but from what I understand they are killer drives......

There apparently have been quite a few failures.

The sales guys here on OSO seem to want to keep the hush on it and when that guy who posted his experiences, he was banned.

There are two sides to every story, but remember, there is some truth in every story as well.

I would like to know who the "quite a few" are. I know of only 2 but there may be more. Both those failures were well in excess of the recommended HP.

The threads got pulled from OSO because some one on the board complained about them. I asked SpeedGirl and there were some people that had reported the thread. The guy was banned because he was slandering a company and was caught more then once back peddling. He broke the rules so OSO banned him.

While there may have been a few Konrad failures how many Bravo's would these guys have gone through? :party-smiley-048: :party-smiley-048:

A fallacious argument.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

No not really when the drive is designed to be a TRS replacement and a Bravo replacement and it does that quite well except for people that use it past its recommended design criteria.

Plus the company took care of the customers from what I know. Everyone has failures from time to time it is how they handle it that counts. IMO they handled that guy more then fairly. Even he said that but then bashes them out the other side of his mouth.:hitfan: :hitfan:

Still no failures in our camp! The units we've installed are profisionally maintained and none have been modified. They are all in applications within factory specs and are not being overdriven.

OSO is the place where these things come out and I sure haven't heard a whole lot of people complaining on here about problems with Konrad.

Boatless, what is your experience with Konrad? You keep posting derogatory and inflammatory things about them so let's hear it!

I have a friend that was blowing bravo's every poker run and made the switch to Konrad drives. He can't be happier and the service from Kurt as well as the company is first class. He is running a 42 Sonic with 720 Innovations. P.S. No more not finishing the run due to a blown drive..... Priceless!!!

Lofty. My guess is that the other guy gets the boot from the web site because he is caught lieing and slandering a company. He lied about how much he paid for the rebuild, and he was not forthright about the modifications that he did to the drive. Now he has his chear leading section come on to try and bash the drive....... :rolleyes: As you said it is not like there are tons of people on hear saying that their drives blew up as these guys claim. SO I guess that I am waiting for them to tell us who all these customers are, other wise I only know of two and they were both well in excess of the drives specs and one of them is the drive that was modified and that customer was taken care of in MORE then a fair maner IMO. The real money rebuild cost tot that guy was like 300 bucks, BIG DEAL then he comes on hear and bashes the company? GET REAL

Konrad drives are warrantied for 800HP and less. They are very clear on that from speaking with them directly and in their literature. I have not heard of ANY failures when operating within the specified HP and torque ratings. Yes there have been issues when exceeding the specifications.

There is nothing on the market that can compare to Konrad in performance or customer service. As a replacement to a TRS and within the HP rating the drive is bulletproof!!

If you don't have a Konrad Drive then how are you qualified to comment?

Agreed.

We only have around 380 hours on the Konrads we put on our own Fountain with a pair of 675hp mills. It's about 300 hours more than I would have expected from the competitors drives in the same app.

I have installed several Konrad drives zero problems,all were installed on engines with less than 800hp.I feel the konrad is the best replacement drive available for 600-800hp applications.The outdrive was design to replace the trs and bravo applications that could not handle 600-800hp load,It was not designed to replace the 6 speedmaster and 1000-1200hp loads,some people will try to overload the drive with too much torque but have no right bashing if failure occcurs,they misapplied the product and now have to pay the price.I am currently installing a set of trs replacements on a 35 cafe with 572-600hp,the trs failed but i am sure the konrads can easily handle the load.The konrad people are great to work with and customer service awesome,I truly believe the konrad when properly installed(600-800hp) will provide years of trouble free operation and low maintenance cost.

4yrs of Racing and Poker Runs with the Konrads, running 2X600+HP and we NEVER EVER had a drive failure.
Previous to installing the Konrads Brian got to be pretty good at rebuilding TRS's

I have been reading for 2 or 3 years that there have been ZERO failures of Konrad drives,I have found this to be suspicious since there is ALWAYS someone that is going to exceed the power rating of ANY component or ABUSE it until it breaks. The Konrad dealers have been posting on every drive thread that the Konrad drive is the answer to breaking other drives and have outright said "even though it is rated for 800 hp it has been used successfully beyond the rating",implying the drive is very under-rated as far as the power level rating. The truth has come out,yes,people have broken konrad drives BUT in very few instances. Are they blowing up behind 700 or 800 hp motors or less,it doesn't appear so from what information can be found thruout the internet. It seems Rock-pirate lied about the circumstances surrounding the failure of his drive,it sounds like from what Jon/Audiofin is saying Konrad did give him a pretty good deal on repairing/upgrading his drive further,I wouldn't want to be him If/when he breaks it again,they most likely won't be giving him any kind of deal/help in the future after his thread on here.
The 2 things that stand out in my opinion that most likely contributed to the drive failing in his particular application was the fact he was running a big, whipple charged motor-similar set-ups have made over 1000 ft lbs of tq down low in the mid range, these big tq numbers absolutely kill drive parts. The other factor, if its true,running a 30 pitch maximus prop in a single engine application. Maximus props are humungous,they weigh 26 lbs in un-modified form,they run with very low slip numbers which is very unforgiving on drives when combined with a extreme amount of tq. I personally sheared off a billet max worx bravo prop shaft testing a 28 pitch maximus prop with 950 ft lbs of tq in a smaller boat so I have a idea of what low slip numbers /hi tq and a heavy prop can do to drive parts,Smitty

Smitty Konrad did say in their post on the poofed thread that they have had a very small number of failures. They did not elaborate on that but I don't think that they are trying to hide anything.

I think that problem with RockPirate was that he saw that no drives were blowing up and people have been very happy with them. He saw that there ARE drives holding up well under extream use like races and poker runs. He thought that since they have been holding up so well that it would last in his aplication as well. IMO you have to trust what the engineers at Konrad tell you and that is that the drive is only rated for 800HP anything more and you probably should be looking at a different drive that as we all know is not only a LOT more money but also requires a tranny IN the boat......

You are also correct about the Maximus props. Those things are KILLER on drives so his situation really was a double even tripple wammy

Jon

Well said!!! I have TRS and would switch to Knorads in a heartbeat if I stay under 800 hp, after that Arneson's for me. I really like the Konrads and the US Gov't tries to get the best Bang for the buck, they have done a great job at filling the nich market, hats off to them.

I would say that his screen name tells all!!:chimp: :chimp: :signs043:

I understand that you had a failure, a trip to WI for repair etc. The story is out there. Period. Are you over the HP rating? Fact of the matter is no company is perfect. You would think that this site could remain unbiased. I am not saying don't promote your wares but people come here for the truth not a sales pitch. I'm sure under most circumstances that Konrad builds a great drive but at the end of the day it is a piece of equipment that can and will break under many circumstances even normal operation!!!