www.iFourWinns.com

Hey there, I just purchased a 2005 298 Vista with dual 5.0 Volvo Penta engines with XDP Composite drives. I take delivery of it in the next 2 weeks.

I have read a lot of negative stuff about these drives and their failures. Then I came across an expired listing for an '04 298 that had "Both drives professionally rebuilt for $21k" in Canada.

I want to ask you friends: is anyone on here still running with XDP drives? Has anyone recently had to deal with any major service on them? Are they really all that bad?

Thank you all

You might ask over at the Volvo Penta I/O forum on iboats.com, there may be people who know about them there.
There was an exchange program where Volvo would give you a somewhat reduced price to replace them with conventional drives, but that is long since past.
Ask local shops as well you might get lucky. Here in salt water I see less and less outdrive boats every year, everyone is buying outboards now. I still have an old OMC Cobra powered boat and there is only one shop that will work on it, I do mostly everything myself.
If I had your boat I'd look into eventually converting it to conventional drives if I liked the boat and intended to keep it. I bet that Volvo isn't supporting the composite drive they just want to forget that they made mistakes with these. The idea was to make a salt water drive that wouldn't corrode, but the technology wasn't there yet. Meanwhile the SX style drives hold up fine in salt water as long as you maintain them. I have 25+ years on my salt water used 1988 Cobra! it can be done but takes regular work and maintenance.

_________________
88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

You might ask over at the Volvo Penta I/O forum on iboats.com, there may be people who know about them there.
There was an exchange program where Volvo would give you a somewhat reduced price to replace them with conventional drives, but that is long since past.
Ask local shops as well you might get lucky. Here in salt water I see less and less outdrive boats every year, everyone is buying outboards now. I still have an old OMC Cobra powered boat and there is only one shop that will work on it, I do mostly everything myself.
If I had your boat I'd look into eventually converting it to conventional drives if I liked the boat and intended to keep it. I bet that Volvo isn't supporting the composite drive they just want to forget that they made mistakes with these. The idea was to make a salt water drive that wouldn't corrode, but the technology wasn't there yet. Meanwhile the SX style drives hold up fine in salt water as long as you maintain them. I have 25+ years on my salt water used 1988 Cobra! it can be done but takes regular work and maintenance.

_________________
88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II