Great Lakes
Well-Known Member
- Oct 11, 2016
- 1,448
- Boat Info
- 2008 - Formula 400ss
- Engines
- Volvo Penta D6-350
Before I purchased my 390 last year I made an excel sheet with all the 04/05 390’s and 06-08 40’s in the whole country and listed every single option and their engines. For my $200k budget I quickly removed the 40’s... I started focusing on 390’s. It came down to two of them.
One was loaded with all the options, gas 8.1HO with 380 hours. It also had a lot of options added aftermarket.
The second was a diesel that was $15k more and had absolutely nothing on it, totally stripped.
For my budget and after weighing both of them for days I went with the gasser. Ideally, diesels would be more efficient, doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that. However for our boating style we couldn’t justify it. Our longest trip is 3 hours one way. Most of the time we go 20 minutes to a bay, throw hook for the day and drink water.
The gassers have no problems with a jestski and a crew on board. Like I said before, it’s a gas hog but this isn’t the hobby to be involved in if you’re worried about that.
My point is, buy the most boat you can with the budget you have. We chose all the options over the one big option and I don’t regret it at all
One was loaded with all the options, gas 8.1HO with 380 hours. It also had a lot of options added aftermarket.
The second was a diesel that was $15k more and had absolutely nothing on it, totally stripped.
For my budget and after weighing both of them for days I went with the gasser. Ideally, diesels would be more efficient, doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that. However for our boating style we couldn’t justify it. Our longest trip is 3 hours one way. Most of the time we go 20 minutes to a bay, throw hook for the day and drink water.
The gassers have no problems with a jestski and a crew on board. Like I said before, it’s a gas hog but this isn’t the hobby to be involved in if you’re worried about that.
My point is, buy the most boat you can with the budget you have. We chose all the options over the one big option and I don’t regret it at all