help with vortech

[macreefster]

i purchased two gen 1 vortechs in march of 2008. both wet sides rusted out and were replaced with upgraded gen 2 parts in december of 2088. one of them is now making a rattling sound and the wet and dry side separated once today. no matter how much i try aligning the wet and dry side it won't stop rattling. it seems like something is loose in the wetside. what do i do? thanks

[macreefster]

one more thing.....if i run the pump on constant mode at about 60% or less, the rattling sound stops.

[EcoTech Marine]

Hi Macreefster-

You may need a new drive shaft. Email us at service@ecotechmarine.com with a description of your problem and make a couple pictures of the wet side disassembled and Steve will help you out.

[macreefster]

thanks tim....how long do the drive shafts last? a year? not sure if they replaced the driveshaft when you upgraded my wetsides to gen 2's two months ago...but the pumps are only a year old and for the price charged i would hope they last longer than that, especially considering ive already had to send both units back to you for warranty work. your customer service is great, but i might suggest you do more product testing on site instead of on the market. had you done so with the gen 1's you would have known within a year they were faulty instead of having us customers having to deal with their faulty design. dont get me wrong, i love the pumps, but can't say i am at all happy with their reliability when ive invested almost a grand into them.

[EcoTech Marine]

The drive shafts should last over two years under normal use. Most wear comes if the pump is run at continuous max speed. using night mode or any of the other modes will substantially improve the wear.

However, your drive shaft is not worn, in fact it is the opposite problem; It seems the drive shaft is too tight. This happens from time to time but is very rare these days.

If your pump is operating fine since the disassembly/reassembly that you performed last week, I'd say that you'll be ok and won't need any service.

[macreefster]

what would "normal" use be then? i run reefcrest mode at almost 100%. will i have to replace the drive shaft yearly for that? not sure what you're refering to about me disassembling/reassembling my vortech. ive never done so, nor stated so. i did mention i sent both units to eco tech in december to replace the rusted out wet sides with gen 2 parts and was wondering if they would have checked out the drive shafts then. that was only two months ago.

ive left a voice message with customer service and sent a couple of emails....hopefully i'll hear from someone soon.

as much as i love the look and flow of the vortechs i am having serious doubts about their reliability. never had any troubles with tunze, but i'd so hate to add those cords back into the tank. hopefully i'll hear from customer service soon and this will be a quick fix and maybe you'll come up with a drive shaft that can perform at max speed for over a year in the future.

thanks for your help.

[EcoTech Marine]

Hi macreefster-

Sorry, regarding assembly/disassembly, it seems I read something that wasn't there!

Anyway, worst case is that you'll need a new drive shaft which we can help you out with. Again, the drive shaft should last about two years or so. Sometimes they give out earlier, but at this point we have enough pumps out there for long enough time to confidently say that two years is a reasonable time. You may never have to replace it, or you may have to replace it a little before two years. Either way we're there to help you out should this be the case.

For whatever it's worth, I did not say that the drive shaft will only perform a little over a year at max speed, I said that max speed wears it out the most and you might be closer to the two year point rather than five. Without having your pump in hand I can't tell you what may or may not be wrong with it.

Anyway, give us a chance to get you up and running and happy again. If you emailed service then Steve will be in touch with you as soon as possible.

[macreefster]

thanks..... like i said, i love my vortechs, just a bit disconcerted over having to service them so much. i'll keep trying steve, i am sure he's busy.