hello..

Back from the dead (I hope)...

The sad story of my boat... hopefully a happy ending coming soon...

So - some of you may recall, several years back I was having trouble with power and overheating issue with one motor on my boat. Couldn't get the mechanic to ever show up... finally he did and put a new radiator cap on the engine, which made no difference.

The boat sat barely used. We could never get a hold of the mechanic and were growing desperate. In 2019 we pulled the boat- cleaned and painted it ourselves and changed the anodes.

Couldn't get it to run right still overheating one engine. Mechanic resurfaces - charges us another boat buck claiming now that the engine had problems and that it needed major work. Recommends we open an insurance claim..

Insurance guys get a hold of me and then they play tag team with the mechanic who promptly disappears. Then covid hits. Everything stops. If you think it was hard finding the mechanic pre covid, try in covid..fully vanished.

We are ready to give up. Paying moorage for 3 seasons for no use of the boat. Only person getting $$$ is the mechanic who does nothing.

We take her out for a spin only once - last summer (covid).. she promptly (and for real this time) overheats... previously just read hot on the gauge. Steam comes out.

Shut her down and head straight back to port. The bad engine controls the power steering as well. Ugh. Also discover that the trim cylinders on this engine have leaked their guts into the ocean.

Spend the last 6 months hunting a new mechanic. Finally find a shop and they send down a tech. They tell me to throw in the towel and that I should try to sell her. They don't have the time for smaller boats. They recommend testing the market by listing her for $5k to see if we get any interest.

I list her on Craigslist for $5k with full disclosure and get literally 30 responses in an hour. Uh oh.

Try with a 10k price, then 20k. People wanting to buy her. Am I making a mistake? Giving up?

I skim the ads and realize prices have gone bonkers (covid again??)... kids don't want to give up the boat. Even as a dead hulk she appears to be worth $20. After being online for only 24hrs we pull the ad altogether.



So we decide to keep her and continue the hunt for a new permanent mechanic, and after a few more months finally find who I hope is a great mechanic. Recommended by a few people.

I get her towed (in water) to the haul out.

She is out of the water now, legs off and being properly maintained for the first time since we owned her. Mechanic actually has employees and they actually show up!!

We honestly feel we were taken advantage of by the previous mechanic. We didn't know much about bigger boats having only had a 17 footer before this. We paid a good chunk of change annually for him to maintain it. We made sure we paid him well and he knew we wanted to do PREVENTIVE maintenance!

Now we realize he basically did nothing but take our money. I didn't know the legs had to come off and the impellers changed. I would ask.. hey do those things ever need to come off That? That never happened once in 6 years. We just paid for maintenance, thousands a year. Now we have at least one ruined leg, 4 bad trim cylinders and a big bill.

Hoping to actually spend time on her this summer before the kids grow up and lose interest.

That's our sad story.

New mechanic says he will even fix the stalling issue we have when we shift gears docking! Our #1 complaint since we owned the boat. Such a nice boat and she has never once run right.

Cannot wait to have her fixed!!

Anybody know a good source for 4 x trim cylinders btw?

I stopped reading here. Mechanics don't like game players. I'd pull a disappearing act too.

"I list her on Craigslist for $5k with full disclosure and get literally 30 responses in an hour. Uh oh.
Up the price to 10k. Then 20k. People wanting to buy her. Am I making a mistake? Giving up?"

Huh?

HawkX66 said:

I stopped reading here. Mechanics don't like game players. I'd pull a disappearing act too.

"I list her on Craigslist for $5k with full disclosure and get literally 30 responses in an hour. Uh oh.
Up the price to 10k. Then 20k. People wanting to buy her. Am I making a mistake? Giving up?"

Click to expand...

What exactly are you saying here? We paid our "mechanic" thousands and thousands for annual "service" that turned out to be fake. Explain how that makes us "game players"?

Your initial mec

Black Valkyrie said:

What exactly are you saying here? We paid our "mechanic" thousands and thousands for annual "service" that turned out to be fake. Explain how that makes us "game players"?

Click to expand...

I can't comment on your initial mechanic, but if you're the type to pull a bait and switch when selling something it tells me you're not the type that most would be interested in doing business with. This is my opinion based on what you did to the people that answered your Craigslist ad.

A couple of things just from an observer's perspective and not meant to be disrespectful of you or denigrate you;
If one puts something on Craig's list at a specific target price and then raises the price just because one gets more interest, that is seen by most as unethical. If however one puts something on EBAY as and auction offering to see what the market will bear that is a different thing all together. You either get that or not.
As to your main problem, It is my belief and I am sure many on the forum share this, if you are going to own and operate a boat or an airplane or and RV for that matter, you really should take the time to really learn for your self what is required to keep it sea, air or road worthy. It does not mean you need to be a DIYer like many of us but you need to be knowledgeable which with technology today is pretty easy to do. If you had taken some time prior to buying or during the first few months of ownership anyway, you could have given a specific list of items that you want your mechanic to service. That gives you power and a position of being less likely to be taken advantage of. There are unsavory mechanics out there that eat guys like you for breakfast because you just write checks and trust in them. If a mechanic gets the idea that you know what you want done and have the capacity to tell whether or not it was done, he is less likely to rip you off. Its your money and your families safety that is at stake here.
Just a little food for thought.
Carpe Diem

We only listed her for $5k at the advice of a shop - and they said to do it to test the market. Clearly 30 buyers in an hour tells you the price is wrong. Like others on this site - we were unaware of the runup in prices. There is no harm in listing something and then removing the listing. Come on. The ad was up for maybe 24hrs and no one even saw the boat. We were just flooded with emails. This isn't a Nigerian ebay car scam so don't paint it that way.

Regardless there is no point in selling her if we couldn't replace her and we discovered that pretty quickly.

As to being uneducated about the boat - to a degree we own that, however it is (at least here) next to impossible to find a mechanic so it was also a bit of the devil you know situation. Also the ongoing promises of the mechanic attending and being there and then not makes it hard to get out of that cycle.

HawkX66 said:

Your initial mec

I can't comment on your initial mechanic, but if you're the type to pull a bait and switch when selling something it tells me you're not the type that most would be interested in doing business with. This is my opinion based on what you did to the people that answered your Craigslist ad.

Click to expand...

I edited the story to help you understand. Apparently there is a touch of millennialism here with the new members lol.

Black Valkyrie said:

We only listed her for $5k at the advice of a shop - and they said to do it to test the market. Clearly 30 buyers in an hour tells you the price is wrong. Like others on this site - we were unaware of the runup in prices. There is no harm in listing something and then removing the listing. Come on. The ad was up for maybe 24hrs and no one even saw the boat. We were just flooded with emails. This isn't a Nigerian ebay car scam so don't paint it that way.

Regardless there is no point in selling her if we couldn't replace her and we discovered that pretty quickly.

As to being uneducated about the boat - to a degree we own that, however it is (at least here) next to impossible to find a mechanic so it was also a bit of the devil you know situation. Also the ongoing promises of the mechanic attending and being there and then not makes it hard to get out of that cycle.

Click to expand...

I totally get that and can imagine how frustrating that would be. In any event I hope your problems are resolved soon and you and the Family enjoy the upcoming season. Your right, you need to get as much boat time as possible before the kiddos want nothing to do you Mom and Dad on the weekends

Hate to hear stories like this.
I know a lot of people that enjoy boating and have some good skills running a boat but don't understand the required maintenance and would rather just write a check for a skilled person to keep their boat in top shape.
For your previous maintenance person to not perform standard maintenance schedules is more than shoddy practice, he's a thief.
Sounds like you have found a crew that cares about their customers and their work, best of luck going forward. You should also download a required maintenance scheule for your boat and engines and be sure that you are specific to what you have serviced in the future.
Enjoy the coming warmer weather

BV, now that it appears you have found a good mechanic shop, TAKE CARE OF THEM!!!

I had the greatest shop in the PNW. They did a great job working on my boat and I appreciated them for doing a good job. About once every couple of months I would go by this Mexican restaurant and get their Fiesta Feast which is a dinner for about 10 people and take it to them for lunch. I'd also stop by a donut place and pick up a dozen donuts for them.

I got to be friends with the owner and his wife and we took them out to dinner at a nice restaurant to repay him for work he did but wouldn't charge me for.

I guess what I'm saying is, if you REALLY appreciate them, show it by your deeds, not just by your words. Don't just take their good service for granted. Yes, you're paying them for their work, but show them you appreciate THEM for the good job they do.

Completely agree! Thanks all. Looking forward to closing this chapter and opening a new one!!

Black Valkyrie said:

I edited the story to help you understand. Apparently there is a touch of millennialism here with the new members lol.

Click to expand...

Ah. Didn't know that calling people out for being unethical was a millennial thing. Millennials just gained a point or two in my view.

HawkX66 said:

Ah. Didn't know that calling people out for being unethical was a millennial thing. Millennials just gained a point or two in my view.

Click to expand...

Them's fightin' words, stranger.

I'd say the only lack of ethics is being displayed by your unwarranted responses to long time members of this forum.

Welcome aboard, new guy.

I find it surprising you have been on CSR since 2014 and didn't know that the outdrives need to be pulled periodically for maintenance and that impellers need to be replaced or you will have overheating as a symptom. I guess that is why you were taken advantage of by the first mechanic. That is one of my fears with my kids. They never took interest in anything mechanical, even when I tried to get them to help out with basic car maintenance and boat maintenance. They will pay many thousands of $ more than they need to over their lifetime because of not understanding the basics so they can call BS when unethical mechanics string them along.

Creekwood said:

I find it surprising you have been on CSR since 2014 and didn't know that the outdrives need to be pulled periodically for maintenance and that impellers need to be replaced or you will have overheating as a symptom. I guess that is why you were taken advantage of by the first mechanic. That is one of my fears with my kids. They never took interest in anything mechanical, even when I tried to get them to help out with basic car maintenance and boat maintenance. They will pay many thousands of $ more than they need to over their lifetime because of not understanding the basics so they can call BS when unethical mechanics string them along.

Click to expand...

Never said we weren't "mechanical" ... the boat being IN the water poses challenges preventing me from being able to work on it myself. That being said, when it did come out, we would ask about the drives and were always told by the mechanic that they needed nothing and not to touch them. Additional info - the mechanic came with the boat. When we bought the boat we met the mechanic and he had a folder he showed us claiming 15 years of work he had done on the boat.

We had no reason not to trust him. I'd look at that folder of papers through a different lens now. They could have all been fake for all I know. Our best guess is that his true depth of knowledge stopped at changing the oil, anodes and chucking paint on the bottom. Anything beyond that which required any specialty tools or skill must have been beyond him so he just didn't do it and would say it's unnecessary. That's our guess.

All of that being said, can most definitely call BS on lots of what happened now with hindsight- and if I owned acreage and had this boat parked in my driveway I would have done everything myself.

Oh well.

Wow, tough crowd mid winter.
BV - before you list on CL some diligence would be good, look nationwide for similar boats to get a feel for pricing, then list. Using CL to test the waters is a bit cheesy, although not the mortal sin others are making it, since you didn’t respond or show the boat.
I think you learned a valuable lesson on ownership, boats, cars, houses, whatever. You need to educate yourself on all the things that are required to own it, registration, titles, insurance, fees, maintenance, .... everything. Then you can decide what to diy vs hire out. In this case, if you had some knowledge of what needed done, you could have challenged the sketchy mechanic in real time and got the correct work done for the correct price.
In the end you learned a valuable although expensive lesson. Use this lesson to do better going forward.
And good luck, I hope you and the family can spend an enjoyable summer boating this year.

I think the long winter is starting to show.

A little sun and gentle rocking of the boat (and large buckets of adult beverage) should calm things a bit. A couple short months to go....