MarineMax trustworthiness

[PlayDate]

https://www.bbb.org/us/fl/clearwate...service/marinemax-inc-0653-1004426/complaints

Strike 1-
I actually read the legal decision....I'm wondering if you did. The judge approved the summary judgements against the Plaintiff and effectively dismissed the case against Sea Ray and Marine Max.

Strike 2-
Attacking Marine Max without having a single personal experience story to tell. If you just believe what you want to....that is okay by me......but others will question it.

Strike 3-
Attacking other CSR members because they don't agree with your "observations". What do you expect? Most of the comments you have received are complimentary of Marine Max and despite the really lame link above have actual personal experience dealing with the company.

Add me to your Ignore list...

 

[BeeBoating]

And what’s the “trustworthiness” of that “show off your admiral pic? Suspect I say - very suspect.

 

[DWABoat]

The same thing is happening in the RV segment with Camping World seeming to gobble up local retailers.
When CW went pure Trump-Derangement a couple of years ago, many on the RV forums had problems getting service from non-CW dealers because there were none. They were trying to make statements with dollars.

I did not realize MM had become so dominant in the boating world since I have not had a new boat in over 20 years.

Good info.

 

[Lazy Daze]

Doc, it was mentioned above, but it deserves repeating. It's often tough (and maybe unfair) to judge a company simply by complaints that are found on the net. The number of complaint to accolade ratio is severely skewed towards the negative. Afterall, how many people willingly post about a "good" experience? Most do not. But if they have a negative experience, they're very quick to report that. Plus, we often only hear one side of the story. Those negative reports... the person writing it will typically leave out any part where they may have been at fault or exacerbated the situation.

Online reviews can sometimes be helpful - but don't take them as gospel. Take a field trip and go visit a place. See what kind of vibe you get. Go with an open mind, though!

 

[wyrman]

I wasn't going to comment, but, I bought my last boat through MM at Lake of the Ozarks.
I have nothing but good things to say about the salesman and everyone else i dealt with.

 

[JVM225]

IMHO: MarineMax is like any other sales and service boat or car dealer. While there are good and bad people working in sales and service, a buyer has a lot to do with how the experience goes.
If I get a sense of the ability to develop a rapport with a salesperson, I’m usually more comfortable in my ability to develop a good relationship with them, and it goes pretty well.
They’re in it for the money. It’s how they make their living and I totally respect that. I ask a lot of questions and try to make the best deal I can without being unreasonable or disrespectful.
If I walk in to a boat, car or any other kind of dealer and the salesperson seems like an a$$hole, too high pressure, or can’t be bothered, I go to the next guy.
I bought my current boat from a MarineMax dealer in Connecticut and the actual salesman was from one of their New Jersey locations.
The NJ guy spent a lot of time looking for a boat for me over a period of about 6 months, checked in with me often enough to run prospects by me, but not too much where he was a PIA or calling me with stuff I had no interest in.
The boat he found me was a trade in to the Connecticut store. Not a brokerage boat.
I closed in December and took delivery in April. They included, winterization, storage, wrap, etc. in the deal. It also gave the Connecticut store time to address the punch list of items they agreed to take care of before delivery.
The buying experience and delivery with everyone involved was great.
I was able to negotiate what I thought was a fair price.
They did everything they said they would do and were very accommodating during all of my visits to putter on the boat between closing and delivery.
My daughter’s boyfriend’s parents bought a boat from MarineMax here on Long Island a few years back and they were very happy with their buying experience. A couple or warranty issues that came up were taken care of for them quickly and to their satisfaction after they owned the boat.
They’ve owned it for several years now and have thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

[mobocracy]

Hi I have done business with MMAX Minnesota for over 25 years in all departments, Sales, Service & Parts and cannot complement them anymore, Always the BEST! In the last 10 years several of their best sales people have moved to Florida and top management at MMax came from the Minnesota location.

My experience is limited to MN stores but I know the team that moved to Florida and Management that oversees that market are good people.

I bought my 2007 310 DA through their brokerage in Minnesota. Sales guy was great to deal with and the sale itself was good.

Where it went wrong was using them for the presale mechanical inspection. I got basically a shop quote for a bunch of things that needed repair. I pared this down, eliminating some easy things I could do myself, and had them do the repair.

When I got the bill for the repairs, it was nearly $3000 over their presale written estimates. Labor estimates were wrong, parts were wrong, and none of the variations were explainable by more extensive repairs/hidden damage or additional needed parts.

The shop was really unpleasant to deal with when challenging the cost deviations from the written estimate, and I basically had to threaten legal action with them at which point they revised the price down to match the written estimates.

I think the root problem was the shop is just poorly run. There's no excuse for misquoting parts prices and really, they should understand labor rates for basic repairs pretty well. That they completely missed the warranty items on the Cool Fuel III modules that quickly became an issue on my engines and the pump out hose which was totally permeated leads me to believe their inspection is mostly worthless.

I also considered that I had been gamed with a low-ball, intentionally inaccurate repair estimate so their brokerage could make a sale. Had the repairs been any higher, I might have walked from the sale or demanded even more discount. No, I can't prove this but I am definitely suspicious.

I mostly took this is as used boat buying lessons. Always get a disinterested third party to do your mechanical inspection (I had a survey done, too, but it would not have done any mechanical details), and also assume you're in for another $5000-10000 in repairs when buying a used boat and bargain accordingly. These were my mistakes from ignorance and expedience, and I need to own them.

All that being said, I won't do business with MarineMax anymore unless it was absolutely necessary.

 

[All's Well]

I agree with many of the responses here -
As a MM shareholder I appreciate their desire to boost profits.
As a customer, I know many of their long term sales people most of who I trust and believe to be straight shooters. I have not had good experiences with their service folks in FL or TX. Back in 1999 when I had my boat in NC, they were the best service provider around. They provided great training to their people and many left to start their own businesses using the MM sponsored training.
In the end, I believe that it's going to be a location specific decision. If you have a local MM store, go by and see if you can establish a relationship and go from there. Keep in mind that in our current environment when boats are selling like crazy they may not be too hungry to bend over backwards because they know they can make sales pretty easily.

 

[mobocracy]

In the end, I believe that it's going to be a location specific decision. If you have a local MM store, go by and see if you can establish a relationship and go from there.

I think this might be a valid criticism of "Marine Max" as a national entity, though. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a national business to aspire to and work hard to establish and maintain a uniform level of service and support. "Marine Max, it could go either way in your area" isn't exactly a huge endorsement of Marine Max as a company.

Obviously there will always be some level of regional variation, and I would expect in coastal areas that the general level of competition and boating volume would tend to be a "rising tide which lifts all boats" phenomenon, which probably works in their favor. Either as a direct result of competition or just greater focus by national management since there's just more money being made in those markets.

 

[Steve in Minneapolis]

I"m in the middle of ordering my boat through MM in Minnesota. So far, the experience has been good. The sales guy is responsive, and seems to be a straight shooter. I did get a quote on having a through-hull installed pre-delivery for a wash-down pump. They quoted 3 hours at $150, which I think sounds high, but I haven't yet shopped around. I hope that's an accurate quote, but now I wonder after the comments from mobocracy.

Like others, they will winterize and store my trade-in, and will store the new boat and launch it next spring, all without any charge. So far, so good. I had seen the case noted by OP before he posted it, but it seems like a really unusual situation. Noting that it was basically dismissed and it sounded like the buyer in this case caused a lot of the problems, I put it in the "ignore" pile.

 

[mobocracy]

I"m in the middle of ordering my boat through MM in Minnesota. So far, the experience has been good. The sales guy is responsive, and seems to be a straight shooter. I did get a quote on having a through-hull installed pre-delivery for a wash-down pump. They quoted 3 hours at $150, which I think sounds high, but I haven't yet shopped around. I hope that's an accurate quote, but now I wonder after the comments from mobocracy.

I don't think 3 hours for a through-hull install is way out of line when you consider the work involved of drilling, sealing, etc.

My complaints were more along the line of how they could have estimated the cost for replacing the air conditioning raw water pump and gotten both the price of the pump and labor wrong.

 

[Steve in Minneapolis]

Yep, I hear you loud and clear! I'm a little worried that they estimate 3 hours, and then later bill me for 6 hours and ridiculous parts cost. In your case, they should honor the estimate, unless there is some strange circumstance. Sounds like they did, but only after you pushed them. I'll make sure I'm very clear on the costs before I give them the go-ahead.

In the end, it's all about service after the sale. One of the reasons I'm trading out of my existing boat to a different brand is that it was a major ordeal with the dealer after the sale. The delivery punch list took a year to get resolved... and they were all minor issues. In moving to a larger boat, we didn't even look at that other dealer... there is no way I'm signing up for that aggravation again. And, I'm pretty optimistic that I won't have this problem with MM.

 

[mobocracy]

In the end, it's all about service after the sale. One of the reasons I'm trading out of my existing boat to a different brand is that it was a major ordeal with the dealer after the sale. The delivery punch list took a year to get resolved... and they were all minor issues. In moving to a larger boat, we didn't even look at that other dealer... there is no way I'm signing up for that aggravation again. And, I'm pretty optimistic that I won't have this problem with MM.

Your profile says Monterey is your current boat, isn't River Valley Power & Sport the dealer for them in the Twin Cities? Our last boat was a Yamaha SX-190 we got from them. I thought that was a decent boat, but yeah, they are hard to work with (especially if you boat on Minnetonka) because they don't have anything more than a sales office on the lake and all service is out of Red Wing, which is awkward for everything.

I know Marine Max has an office on St. Alban's in Excelsior, but I think they're sort of in the same situation where all service is done out of Rogers. I know I drive by their Excelsior office every time I go to the marina and almost always see a towing pickup there, so maybe they have a shuttle system down pat for moving stuff back and forth efficiently.

I started using Indoor Boat Storage when I needed some engine work done and they have been awesome. Did you consider just keeping the Monterey and just working with a different service vendor? I wish my marina had actual mechanics on staff, that would be the best of all worlds.

 

[Steve in Minneapolis]

Yes, I got the Monterey at RVPS. I don't really want to bash them in here... but I have learned that anyone who knows them is familiar with my experience, because theirs was the same. Nuff said. If you would like to hear more about that, PM me and we can take it off line. To their credit, RVPS is now developing a service team that works on the lake.

The MM office in Excelsior has 3 or 4 teams who travel around the lake offering service. I assume it's similar to the RVPS system, where they have a truck loaded with tools and certain common parts.

So, we are moving up in size, not just selling because of issues with the boat. In fact, all of our issues have been addressed, and we are happy with the boat. We probably should hold onto it for another few years, but you know how that goes.

My point was that we didn't even bother to look at Montereys because we don't want to deal with that dealer again. This supports the importance of a long term relationship with the dealer. We did look at a few Regals, Four Winns and some others. The Sea Ray checked all of the boxes for us, and the upgrade was significant enough to entice us to move up. And, we felt very comfortable with the dealer, and the good references we've gotten from other SR owners on the lake. This is in opposition to the OP.

I will check out Indoor Boat Storage for any non-warranty work. Thanks for the referral!