Customer Responsibility:

How many times have we heard that a boat is " a hole in the water I pour money into"? It is true that purchase prices and repair prices can get pretty big, but compared to many other hobbies and sports it really is not so bad. In many cases the owner of the boat is his own worst enemy. Some of the blame for this rests on our shoulders, those of us in the industry. We often forget that just because they can buy a boat they must know how to use it and take care of it. Sales people never talk about maintenance," this rig was made in heaven by angels and will never break down". Service people often don't explain why a repair was needed or how to prevent future problems. And the owner may often hide his ignorance due to embarrassment. This all leads to allot of preventable repairs, costs, and customers that quit boating all together.

We recently had a customer that paid almost $8000.00 to repair his boat and almost all of it was preventable. A late model stern drive with a "sundeck" hatch over the motor, the hatch is heavy so the customer almost never opened it. He brought it in because the alternator was not charging. We opened the hatch to find a huge rusted glob. Checking the oil showed no oil on the dipstick and the motor was frozen solid. We proceeded to pull the motor. The drive shaft from the outdrive rusted into the engine coupler meant cutting the shaft and u-joints to remove drive, cutting the shaft between coupler and transom bearing, cutting off the motor mounts to remove the motor. We found the dip stick rusted off at the pan, the pan rusted through,(dumping all the oil) and the timing case cover rusted through. Rust was so bad that all of the pulleys crumbled, the crank shaft had to be cut to remove the balancer and every bolt on the motor had to be burned or drilled out.

After cusulting with the owner, we found that every time he put it in the water the auto bilge pump cycled off and on often and when he removed the drain plug on the trailer it would drain for 5 to 10 minutes. He had no clue that something was wrong, it had always done that. We found the transom seal and exhaust "Y" leaking into the boat. Each time he ran the motor the bilge filled with water, the flywheel and pulleys sprayed it everywhere, and everything rusted out. What might have been a fairly minor leak repair turned into a major re-fit because of ignorance and neglect. As a result this customer is selling his boat and will never buy another one, and we have lost another boater.

How do we prevent this? Educate your yourself. After a repair, ask what happened and why? Could it have been prevented, and how? You should bring the boat in for regular service. These costs will prevent larger costs in the future. Boaters believe me; hoses, belts, clamps, impellars, manifolds etc all wear out. You need to replace them before they cause larger problems. Problems do not heal or go away by neglect, they only get more expensive. Having flown in many small planes I learned the value of a check list. All pilots do a pre-flight check, boaters should do the same. Before you leave the house: