Help! Limitation of hours?

[Fletch88]

I finally found the perfect boat, or so it thought. It's a 2013 Monterey 204fs. Has the 4.3L EFI 220hp engine. Books for 32k. Seller listing it for 23,900. Seems like a good deal. The bad, it has 670 hours on it and is a previous rental. Should I stay away from this? What are people's thoughts/suggestions? Thanks for the help!

 

[SeaDooSam]

I would personally never buy a rental. At least in my experience rentals are beat to crap and driven hard by inexperience operators. That engine has most likely run at near full throttle all its life. I mean if I were renting I would be full throttling it all day long! Also almost 700hrs is a LOT for a 3 year old boat IMO. Just my .02

 

[Scott Danforth]

welcome aboard

670 hours is not a lot of hours. heck, that's about 3 years worth of use for me. 2000-3000 hours out of an I/O is very common. more if you keep up with maintenance, much less if you slip on maintenance and kill it.

I would shy away from it being a rental. rental boats get a lot of prop and outdrive repair along with fiberglass repair.

 

[SeaDooSam]

welcome aboard

670 hours is not a lot of hours. heck, that's about 3 years worth of use for me. 2000-3000 hours out of an I/O is very common. more if you keep up with maintenance, much less if you slip on maintenance and kill it.

They really last that long without needing an engine rebuild? Wow! I never knew. I thought they were done after 1500. Or maybe I'm used to jet skis which only last 3-500 lol

 

[R055]

The hours aren't concerning, the fact that it was a rental boat is.

 

[Bondo]

2000-3000 hours out of an I/O is very common.

Ayuh,..... Boat motors are usually Killed by their owners, 'n rarely die a natural death,....

My 4.3LX is 'bout 2,000 hours, 'n last compression test was nearly what it was when I installed it 17 years ago,....

 

[Fletch88]

Thanks for the insight guys. I am going to stay away from the rental boats. My search continues.....

 

[SeaDooSam]

Good call!

 

[thumpar]

I hit 698 today. Still going strong. I don't know that I would be that scared of a rental. Any problems would probably be cosmetic and people are afraid of paying for damage so they usually are careful. Some of it might depend on location.

 

[drrpm]

Just for perspective, a car driven 100,000 miles will likely have more than 2,500 hours on the engine. The car engine does inhabit a friendlier environment and spends less time at WOT but I doubt most normal boat owners spend a lot of time at WOT. My boat's engine spends about 90% of its run time between 2,500 and 3,500 RPM.
I wouldn't buy a previous rental boat either.

 

[oldjeep]

It would be interesting to have the sellers mechanic pull the hour report from the ECM to see what the RPM ranges were for those hours. You need to have Diacom or equivalent to pull that report but it would be interesting data to see so that you know if it was mostly cruising or redlining the engine - especially since it was a rental.

The data looks like this - I pulled this from my boat a couple days ago
Engine RPM History

Engine Operating Hours 0 to 1000 RPM = 127.36 Hours
Engine Operating Hours 1001 to 2000 RPM = 33.44 Hours
Engine Operating Hours 2001 to 3000 RPM = 39.64 Hours
Engine Operating Hours 3001 to 4000 RPM = 20.24 Hours
Engine Operating Hours 4001 to 5000 RPM = 4.91 Hours
Engine Operating Hours above 5000 RPM = 0.20 Hours
Total Engine crank revolutions = 19,963,470 REVOLUTIONS

 

[jkust]

So the 2017's of that exact model are on the market in my neck of the woods for 32,900. They have the brand new technology 250HP Mercruiser not the old tech 4.3 as well. That boat to me is a non-starter. I say good luck to them offloading it. My 2002 has 330 hours or so and that to me is high. I concur then with the above, there is no way I'm buying a rental boat for any amount of money...I just don't want it.

 

[Leardriver]

A 20 foot boat with a 6 cylinder sounds like disappointment to me, if you are going to do water sports.

 

[oldjeep]

So the 2017's of that exact model are on the market in my neck of the woods for 32,900. They have the brand new technology 250HP Mercruiser not the old tech 4.3 as well. That boat to me is a non-starter. I say good luck to them offloading it. My 2002 has 330 hours or so and that to me is high. I concur then with the above, there is no way I'm buying a rental boat for any amount of money...I just don't want it.

330 is high for a 2002? That is insane. My 2012 has 225 on it.

 

[bassman284]

I hit 698 today. Still going strong. I don't know that I would be that scared of a rental. Any problems would probably be cosmetic and people are afraid of paying for damage so they usually are careful. Some of it might depend on location.

Honestly, I would expect a rental to be better maintained than the average privately owned boat but YMMV. Still, I understand the worry over how the rental was used.

 

[thumpar]

Honestly, I would expect a rental to be better maintained than the average privately owned boat but YMMV. Still, I understand the worry over how the rental was used.

That is kind of how I think too. They want the equipment to last so they can get paid.

 

[bassman284]

330 is high for a 2002? That is insane. My 2012 has 225 on it.

OK, this is kind of OT for this thread but it reminds me of my favorite motor hours story.

Back in 2010 a good friend of mine was looking to buy a particular model boat - an 1850 Lund ProV in pristine condition about 120 miles away. He was very particular about condition. A few weeks earlier he had driven about 450 miles to Duluth only to reject the boat because of some dock rash (not a lot IMO). The only glitch was that it had a 150 Verado on it instead of the 150 Yamaha he was dreaming of. he called me as he was leaving to go look at it to find out what I knew about Verados so while he was driving, I was beating my keyboard finding out what I could. He also told me the guy told him that this 4 year old Verado had less than 50 hours on it. I said yeah right, everybody says less than 50 hours.

Long story short, the boat's condition passed his inspection and they took it to a nearby Mercury dealer to check out the engine. They reported that the motor had 38.6 hours. The seller told my friend that he was selling it because "he never used it." He was the second owner and he said that the original owner sold it to him because "he never used it".

 

[jkust]

Honestly, I would expect a rental to be better maintained than the average privately owned boat but YMMV. Still, I understand the worry over how the rental was used.

My previous 2003 Chap had 199 hours on it when I got rid of it. We bought it with 20 hours and used it every year but floated a lot. I was hoping for something under 200 when I was shopping but as you can imagine, that is hard to find. The 300 plus when we got it beginning of this season was acceptable but not ideal.

 

[jkust]

That is kind of how I think too. They want the equipment to last so they can get paid.

Locally, there was a set of Rental Sea Ray Selects for sale over the summer. There were three of them. They each had somewhere over 2000 hours each on them but they were priced as such. The pics told the story it seemed to me. Lots and lot of gel coat damage some pretty bad stuff along with some interior issues. I got the sense that they didn't fix stuff as it happened at the end of each season.

 

[thumpar]

Locally, there was a set of Rental Sea Ray Selects for sale over the summer. There were three of them. They each had somewhere over 2000 hours each on them but they were priced as such. The pics told the story it seemed to me. Lots and lot of gel coat damage some pretty bad stuff along with some interior issues. I got the sense that they didn't fix stuff as it happened at the end of each season.

That is why I posted earlier about cosmetic damage. The stuff around here is usually pretty nice. Most of them come from Coeur d' Alene where the people are wealthy. The resort rents highend brands and takes care of them.