Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story UPDATE 11-03

[cribber]

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

I had a something not nearly as severe but was my wake up call. I took my boat in for a service and there was oil in the bilge, the mechanic wore black soled safety boots, and my vinyl had greasy hand prints all over where he crawled inside and out. I didn't notice all of this until I got it home and unbuttoned the covers to put stuff back. That was the last time I let them service my boat. I learned everything I needed to know here on Iboats and saved myself $400 in service fees every 100 hours.

 

[paultjohnson]

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

I had a something not nearly as severe but was my wake up call. I took my boat in for a service and there was oil in the bilge, the mechanic wore black soled safety boots, and my vinyl had greasy hand prints all over where he crawled inside and out. I didn't notice all of this until I got it home and unbuttoned the covers to put stuff back. That was the last time I let them service my boat. I learned everything I needed to know here on Iboats and saved myself $400 in service fees every 100 hours.

You work cheap ! $4.00 an hour. Have I got a job 4 U!..

 

[LAC_STS]

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

You work cheap ! $4.00 an hour. Have I got a job 4 U!..

Lol. He meant he saves $400 by doing his 100 hour maintenance.


I went through the same thing. I bought a brand new complete engine. The only thing I had to reuse was my dist. I kept having an intermittent problem with it backfiring and running like crap.

Long story short I ended up taking it to this so-called boat mechanic and the guy tried telling me the engine needed rebuilt. Even though I had told him before I dropped it off that the engine was under warranty and that if something was wrong internally I would take it back to where I got the engine.

I ended up finding the problem was a bad resistor wire going to the coil. Now I just figure it out myself (with the help of the fine people at iboats of course).


So if you can try doing the work yourself. You have a whole community of smart people here that will help you along the way.

 

[SigSaurP229]

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

Lol. He meant he saves $400 by doing his 100 hour maintenance.


I went through the same thing. I bought a brand new complete engine. The only thing I had to reuse was my dist. I kept having an intermittent problem with it backfiring and running like crap.

Long story short I ended up taking it to this so-called boat mechanic and the guy tried telling me the engine needed rebuilt. Even though I had told him before I dropped it off that the engine was under warranty and that if something was wrong internally I would take it back to where I got the engine.

I ended up finding the problem was a bad resistor wire going to the coil. Now I just figure it out myself (with the help of the fine people at iboats of course).


So if you can try doing the work yourself. You have a whole community of smart people here that will help you along the way.

I do the work on my ski boat myself ( with the MUCH appreciated help of the great people at Iboats). This boat is somewhat special to us though so it always goes to a certified mechanic for Everything except for cleaning. After every outing this boat gets scrubbed top to bottom all carpets vaccuumed and all vinyl gets treated with armor all the motor raised. Then we lower the hard top on it it cover it with our cover bungee it tight and there it sits in the covered dock until the next outing.

Every winter the boat comes out of the dock, we learned the hard way NEVER leave it slipped year round in 1994 grandpa decided for the first time ever he would pull it clean the toons and exterior and reslip it for the winter, we got a freak snow storm with 12" inches of snow and it collapsed the dock and partially capsized the boat, (THANK GOD for insurance). They ended up replacing all of the carpet both front seats both front windshields all the plywood flooring in the bow a few of the aluminum frame rails up front it was $1,000 shy of being a total loss and the boat was only 8 months old

So now we go back to the original plan we just trailer the boat home and leave it at home for the winter. Every spring begining of season the boat comes out gets throroughly cleaned and had been taken to this particular shop for new water pump impeller and a standard going through as well as lower unit change and once every two years carb overhaul. We have a stack of receipts from this shop about an inch thick.

When we sold the boat in 2002 after grandpa had his stroke we met the people in our driveway had all documented service records in hand. They took one look at the boat offered full asking price without even test driving it (1,000 over book value) the boat was 9 years old. This year they offered to sell it back to us and we jumped they met us at the dock with their service records in hand same marina twice a year exactly how we maintained the boat. We offered them full asking price not even an attempt to haggle. We can tell you how every little scratch dent and ding got on the boat (and there are not many). We can tell you how the little tears got in the seats (there are two of them in corner seat in the back torn by a fish hook and my Grandpa almost beat me to death with the fishing pole for it). That is why I am soo freaking mad at the marina they know the history of this boat and have severly violated our trust. We were one of the FIRST customers they had 15 years ago and when their dock collapsed on our boat we didn't complain we just fixed it and we slipped with them for another 6 years.

 

[veritas honus]

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

Sig,

You've known this marina owner fifteen years and this is the way he treats you? Sounds like he's had a problem retaining quality help. I can't see that the mechanics and others who've treated your boat so poorly are the same people you'd come to trust after all this time, and now traveled so far to continue a relationship with. His business is probably going under, and he no longer knows how to provide a good customer relationship, not that that excuses his actions. Anyway, I hope they didn't do any permanent damage to your family's boat. Maybe now is the time to break tradition, and make Grandpa proud by doing the work youself on the pontoon boat, as you do the ski boat... No mechanic can put the love you have for that boat into his work. Only you can do that Safe and happy boating always!!!

 

[CascoBay]

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

Sig,

... No mechanic can put the love you have for that boat into his work. Only you can do that......

Amen!!

Stories like these make me glad that I do all my own work. I think it is far easier for me to sit down and turn wrenches then to haul it to a mechanic, wait for a repair, lose a lot of time boating, and the whole time your wondering if your going to get a huge bill for bad workmanship.



Sorry to hear about your story but at least you got out of it cheap.

 

[jonesg]

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

When I read "professionaly maintained" I consider that to be a negative, not positive.

The experts who help us out here on iBoats are proof that there are great techs out there, but they're outnumbered by the cowboys it seems.

Guys who do their own work where possible are boaters.

 

[relics hunter]

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

I used the small claims court to settle damage to car rotors one time. It worked very well to my advantage and you can represent yourself without a lawyer. Just have a good amount of documents and give it a try. If you lose, you lose the a small court filing charge and your day off. I won the cost of new brake calipers and court cost back.
Most states you can file for up to $2000.00 I think.

 

[SigSaurP229]

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

Soo the boat is supposedly fixed ( I say supposedly fixed because I haven't been able to test it yet). We have a shop that is about 10 miles from my dad's house we have never used them before.

We took the boat to them the guy was really nice especially when we told him we absolutely were not playing any games. Told him the whole story asked him to do a full lookover on the boat and to put any problems he found in writing.

He is a 5 star certified mechanic, and it turns out knows the owner of the previous repair shop very well before she opened her store they worked at the same boat manufacturer together and used to boat together said the owner of that shop used to be a great individual.

He worked at the previous shop he said for 6 months and said he was miserable every second of it. He claims that they have become NOTORIOUS for padding the bill, doing things that aren't neccessary, and taking way to long. He said he isn't sure if it is because they do it to make more money or if its just plain because the mechanic is an idiot (his exact words), said he wouldn't trust him with a bicycle.

Anyways he replaced the solenoid on the VRO pump, and had to rebuild a carb said that the guy who rebuilt it a Linda's screwed up the seals on the gaskets, and that it had to be rebuilt. Said he tank tested it and the oil alarm is gone and it shifts in and out of gear just fine.

The best part we dropped it off Monday morning at 0900 we had the boat back at 16:30. He quoted us a price of $250.00 when we got there he said that if we paid cash he would let us have it for $200.00 out the door. Hopefully we have a new mechanic for the Toon.

As for the Ski boat I still do it all myself.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story

That sounds promising. Good luck with it. As I said earlier, I just found an awesome mechanic myself. He was able to diagnose my running problems as having 140HP carbs on a 90HP motor. He recommended I find different carbs but in the meantime was able to rejet my wrong carbs better and it's actually running great as-is. So I'm in no hurry to do the swap. The guy was an encyclopedia of knowledge on outboards. He knew I was heading out immediately to water test my boat after picking it up from him and actually called me to see how it was running. The good ones are out there!

 

[SigSaurP229]

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story UPDATE 11-03

We took the boat for a water test on 11/15/10.

She started just fine no coaxing at all went into gear just fine no problems at all no alarms or overheat buzzers going off, get up the lake just a little and the boat starts smoking BAD.

Then she just stops. Will not start at all luckily we were smart this time and brought both boats (I had just finished carb work on the ski boat so wanted to do a water test anyways).

I had to tow her in again. Motor absolutely would not start at all.

On 11-25-10 I towed it back to the shop (the second shop not the first), to have them look at it for some reason it still is not running.

We got a call today bad news she failed a compression check

115 on cyl 1

70 on cyl 2

40 on cyl 3

BAD numbers, in talking to the shop we discovered the issue a little to late, the first shop installed a new thermostat, but they did it backwards, soo it looks like once again the idiocy of someone else is costing us a crap ton of money.

 

[lncoop]

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story UPDATE 11-03

Wow Sig, that REALLY sucks. From your previous posts in this thread I gather any type of recompense from shop A is out of the question.

 

[Adjuster]

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story UPDATE 11-03

There is no way you can deal with that. Ask for the first shop to pay the repair bill at your new shop. If they refuse don't argue with them or say anything else. Document document document and go to small claims court. Notice I said document three times. Now I have said it four times.

 

[45Auto]

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story UPDATE 11-03

As usual, there are probably two sides to this story.

From SigSaurP229's original post:

We had some issues with the boat stalling when putting it into gear, and the overheat alarm going off.

My response " Your mechanics didn't know it but while he (my dad) was here in the office I went down and watched your mechanics trailer the boat the overheat alarm is still going off and the damned this is still acting like it was when we brought it here"

The overheat alarm was going off when you put the boat in the first shop.

The overheat alarm was still going off when you picked the boat up from the first shop.

The overheat alarm was NOT going off when you picked it up from the second shop. Logic would suggest that something was done to the cooling system or alarm circuitry AFTER it left the first shop ......

You probably want to be careful NOT to include your postings here in your "documentation" if you take it to court, and hope that the original shop owner isn't an Iboats reader.

 

[Beefer]

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story UPDATE 11-03

The overheat alarm was still going off when you picked the boat up from the first shop.

The overheat alarm was NOT going off when you picked it up from the second shop. Logic would suggest that something was done to the cooling system or alarm circuitry AFTER it left the first shop ......

My thoughts exactly. I think even with all the documentation in the world, going after shop 1 will be an uphill battle. Good luck. Cruddy workmanship can be the pits.

 

[SigSaurP229]

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story UPDATE 11-03

As usual, there are probably two sides to this story.

From SigSaurP229's original post:





The overheat alarm was going off when you put the boat in the first shop.

The overheat alarm was still going off when you picked the boat up from the first shop.

The overheat alarm was NOT going off when you picked it up from the second shop. Logic would suggest that something was done to the cooling system or alarm circuitry AFTER it left the first shop ......

You probably want to be careful NOT to include your postings here in your "documentation" if you take it to court, and hope that the original shop owner isn't an Iboats reader.

That is one thing that has really been bothering me about it. If there was an issue with the T-stat being installed backwards why wouldn't the 2nd shop notice that it wasn't putting out a steady stream of water?
And why wouldn't the overheat alarm sound unless the motor doesn't have an overheat alarm and it just has an oil alarm?
1993 Johnson 70hp

I am not sure if it was an overheat or an oil alarm sounding before not really sure if there is a difference. I think we are kind of screwed on this one.

I do know one thing for sure I can read a book and I can turn a wrench and have worked on several of my own outboards (all though all much older), I will be doing my own work from this point forward.

Everything is well documented but at this point I think it is a Fruitless effort, I am either going to have to replace the motor/rebuild the power head.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story UPDATE 11-03

It has an overheat alarm. Even the really old ones had that. My '73 did and it even worked!

 

[veritas honus]

Re: Were we wrong? Shop story LONG story UPDATE 11-03

Sorry to hear about all these problems Sig. I'm glad your going to start doing your own work on it, though. As I said in a previous post, no mechanic can or will put the love you have for this boat into his work. Only you can do that... And I'm sure it would have made your Granfather proud.
Good luck Buddy...

Safe and happy boating always!!!