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My boat, 16 R7 with a V8 380 Volvo Penta, display check engine on the tach when I first power up the boat. Goes away after a number of seconds. Is this normal or do I have a fault? This also happens once in a while while runnning the boat although that is infrequent. Trying to get a dealer to look at the boat has been a challenge as they are far away and really do not want to deal with anything they did not sell. I am thinking of buying a code reader to try to figure out what the issue is. The boat has been great other than this.

My R5 with a V8-300 does the same thing. It is part of an engine check it does when you first turn the key on and is normal. The startup procedure is to turn on the key, wait for the "check engine" message to clear, then start. This is the process for boats that have gauges with an LCD screen in the bottom of the tachometer and speedometer. If the "check engine" comes on while the engine is running or does not clear, that indicates a code is present in the ECM, similar to the check engine light on your car and should be checked out.