Crossed over to ATX, but it has not been the most enjoyable experience.

[IDBoating]

Yeah, obviously I wasn't thinking of a family outing. I was thinking of literally paying for a dealer tech to spend a full day (8-10 hours) on the boat, running it through its paces, inspecting things that commonly have problems from the factory, etc. Honestly, for a $150K investment it feels like that should be part of "dealer prep".

If we presume the burdened cost of the tech in question is $75/hour, that's $750 on a $150K transaction. That's 0.5% (half a percent, not a typo) of the price. If you've got thousands of dollars invested in an extended, remote vacation that's one heck of an insurance policy on a brand new, unproven, unknown boat that is the focus of your trip. If you were out on that trip and something simple interrupts the trip, $750 would probably seem like a cheap fix if you could go back in time, spend the money, and magically make it disappear.

[UNSTUCK]

ID, I know what you meant. I completely agree. I’m getting quotes as we speak for a new build. I’d love to pick it up with twenty hours on it knowing it’s ready to go.
Its one thing to loose an engine in the first twenty hours but totally another thing to almost sink your boat due to a loose ballast fitting.

[sandm]

it's good thinking to pay someone to do the work BUT the reality of the industry right now if you follow freeheel...
there are not enough "techs" to go around to do what you refer to. dealers here are booked out a month in the service side so having to take a "tech" for a day to go do a boat sale will push others even further out. Free calls out all the job openings for service techs at dealerships in the pac nw. it's just as bad in the southwest.

I can see a dealership assigning the job to some lackey that they are paying $15-20/hr to and billing out at $75 and as the old saying goes- you get what you pay for.
if we can't expect a builder to get it done at the assembly line, and can't expect a dealership when rigging the boat to get it right, I would be highly skeptical of a dealership "tech" finding all the issues wrong and it not turning into a quick trip out, billing the monies, and then scheduling it back in a month when the issues do show up.

[IDBoating]

sandm, I sadly agree with your last paragraph. But there has to be a solution.

I need to replace the engines in my jetskis. There is a company that reman's those engines... you buy a reman from them, and you ship the core back in the same crate so they can reman that one for the next guy. Interesting thing is, they offer the engines at two prices. ~$900 buys you a newly reman'd engine, while ~$1200 buys you the exact same engine but with twice the warranty. That's the only difference - the warranty length.

Similarly, a boat manufacturer could sell you the same boat at two prices (or, realistically, with an extra option). The lower price is the boat you get today. But for the extra (say) $1000 option, the FACTORY can bump their employee count by 1-2 bodies and you buy one day of a FACTORY tech running your boat. Your boat then arrives with (say) 8-10 hours on the clock and a personally signed bullet list from that technician. Maybe this concierge service also includes one hour of phone support with THAT GUY, who already knows your specific vessel, within the first 180 days of ownership. That's some serious peace of mind.

I would definitely buy that option.

From the perspective of the manufacturer, if they don't have much interest their skilled tech(s) can do other things in the factory between concierge shipments. It's not like a guy with that skill set would be useless elsewhere. If it's a failure as an option and interest falls off, they just have more available time from highly skilled people already on their staff.

Imagine knowing your boat had been personally checked out by KoolAid or Harvey (RIP). Heck, when it came time for resale having that signed bullet list would be like provenance on a supercar. Less likely to have had early problems, so less likely to have some dealer screw something up while fixing something else, etc.

Going way out on a limb: Maybe this could be a separate business. With shops in TN, FL, CA, and Abilene you'd cover the majority of wakeboat brands. The new boat comes to you from the factory, and you work with the factory on any warranty issues before it ships to the local dealer, but you work for the end customer. Same results but the boat manufacturer doesn't have to directly implement it.

[UNSTUCK]

ID, I think you’ve summed up the job description pretty well.

The problem with all of this is that the manufacturer would basically have to admit their QC isn’t what it should be. “Hey for $1000 we’ll put 10 hours on your boat and find all the mistakes we made while building it. Then we’ll fix them before you take delivery”.

Whats worse is that I’d pay it because I know what could happen. And that is sad.

[freeheel4life]

There's 2 Paragons in the super ritzy marina I go do mobile service at and the dock boys/concierge kids tell me that the Nautique/Bu dealer has been sending their tech up to work on both this summer and supposedly theres a third thats supposed to be moored there but has been in the shop a lot after purchase...

We are taking in an 18 G23 om trade for a custom order Supra because owner says the G is lemon.

I've said it before, everyones poop stinks...

[IDBoating]

The problem with all of this is that the manufacturer would basically have to admit their QC isn’t what it should be. “Hey for $1000 we’ll put 10 hours on your boat and find all the mistakes we made while building it. Then we’ll fix them before you take delivery”. Whats worse is that I’d pay it because I know what could happen. And that is sad.

Going back to my 0.5% price increase, I wonder why manufacturers don't just do this and be done with it. Warranty claims are expensive. Even the "easy" ones cost money because the dealer back-bills the manufacturer to cover the labor and parts. The paperwork on both ends adds more cost. Even worse is the hit to the reputation.

For a 0.5% price increase, it would seem that a manufacturer could give every boat 8 hours of testing. This is not money out of their pocket - I'm saying they could increase the cost of the boat to cover it. Heck, even list it on the price sheet as a "standard feature". Openly brag about it as a brand differentiator. They break even or better on the cost, save themselves the cost and hassle and inconvenience of the warranty claims it eliminates, and enjoy a bump in both real and perceived QC in the marketplace.

Maybe this is why I'm not running a boat company.

[IDBoating]

I'll add here that I DO run an electronics company. And we DO spend more than 0.5% on protection components on everything we ship, specifically to reduce in-the-field problems. Few things are as damaging to the bottom line as customer service events... on any given device a single phone call can consume every penny of "profit" that device generated. It's worth almost anything to make sure that when you ship a device, you never hear from it again.

This is why I insist we include certain protection devices and circuitry on everything we ship. I've had folks here make fun of me for that... "You're wasting money, we've never seen a failure like that in the field"... to which I answer "EXACTLY".

We've also had Production say there's no need to do certain intermediate tests on some of our stuff, but we insist they keep doing them anyway. It costs us more money up front, but it also weeds out problems before they ship to a customer.

When I was first starting out, I heard a powerful rule of thumb: "A bad part gets 10x more expensive at each step in the process." If you have a one cent component that makes it to Incoming Inspection, it costs 10 cents because of the labor to find and reject it. If it makes it to the line, it's a dollar because of the additional labor to swap it out. If it makes it to Final Inspection/QC, it's $10 because the assembly has to go back to be reworked and then reinspected/tested. If it gets all the way to the customer, it's $100 or more because of the phone calls, shipping costs, rework, and administration. For the same $100 you can afford to include a LOT of protection components, self-testing algorithms, etc.

One of the most profitable things a company can do is ship reliable products. I help the money-grubbing beancounters understand it this way: "Reliability means you get to keep ALL of the customer's money."

[sandm]

I wonder why manufacturers don't just do this and be done with it.

my thoughts are it's a mix of issues that come up from day one and issues that manifest over time. being on 2 forums I see some issues like the OP that are day one issues but see a lot of guys with boats in their first season that have 20-50hrs and dead on the water. it's easier for a manufacturer to deal with these than have to explain-since most expect a new boat to have zero to 1 hr- why their boats have 10hrs on them AND issues will still pop up.
I think back to tige and the bad batch of actuators over the last 2 years and a couple of brands that had issues with alternator wiring. both issues would be hit or miss in the first few hours and still cause issues down the road.

[cpobanz]

I've received my 2021 tige 23zx a month ago, and I haven't had a single issue. Im already at 20 hrs. This is my second Tige, my '12 Z3 ran like a charm for years.

[LTWellman]

Wow, it must be nice. My 2017 Z3 that I bought new has been a complete POS. I've got around 100 hours on it and it's probably beeped and alarmed 60 of those hours. I've had 5 inboards over the last 25 years and by far this boat is the biggest POS I've come across. It's sucks the happiness that you're supposed to have on the water right out of you, with it's constant BS and fault codes. I wanted to support a Texas company as a native Texan, but never again. 3 years into this tragedy I'm ready to jump ship. I'll definitely tell all my waterfront neighbors to stay away from Tige products.

[cnote]

I'll chime in on the "good" side here, for balance. no major issues for the first few years and the key is having a dealer who will support you, no matter the brand. As stated before on this thread, everybody's poop stinks. including $250k paragons.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[freeheel4life]

Wow, it must be nice. My 2017 Z3 that I bought new has been a complete POS. I've got around 100 hours on it and it's probably beeped and alarmed 60 of those hours. I've had 5 inboards over the last 25 years and by far this boat is the biggest POS I've come across. It's sucks the happiness that you're supposed to have on the water right out of you, with it's constant BS and fault codes. I wanted to support a Texas company as a native Texan, but never again. 3 years into this tragedy I'm ready to jump ship. I'll definitely tell all my waterfront neighbors to stay away from Tige products.

I'd be curious to find out if any of this is o2 sensors. You getting Short Term Fuel Trim codes (STFT at screen), heater open/lazy?? The beeping and alarming should all be Indmar issues not a Tige issue(yes they chose the engine). Just wondering because some of those model years had cat issues and can't help but wonder if you are fighting a known issue that hasn't been resolved?? If you go to diag screen and request previous faults does it have any stored?? Key needs to be on, engine off when requesting previous faults.

Sucks you haven't enjoyed your boat.

[SONIC]

Wow, it must be nice. My 2017 Z3 that I bought new has been a complete POS. I've got around 100 hours on it and it's probably beeped and alarmed 60 of those hours. I've had 5 inboards over the last 25 years and by far this boat is the biggest POS I've come across. It's sucks the happiness that you're supposed to have on the water right out of you, with it's constant BS and fault codes. I wanted to support a Texas company as a native Texan, but never again. 3 years into this tragedy I'm ready to jump ship. I'll definitely tell all my waterfront neighbors to stay away from Tige products.

This opens a whole other can of worms.
Tige is relying on Indmar for a quality engine, and their reputation takes the hit when it sucks because people just attribute that to Tige when in reality they have 0 to do with engine faults.

Tige runs the same(essentially) engine setup as Supra, Moomba, Malibu, Axis, MB, Sanger and Pavati. All from Indmar.

[freeheel4life]

This opens a whole other can of worms.
Tige is relying on Indmar for a quality engine, and their reputation takes the hit when it sucks because people just attribute that to Tige when in reality they have 0 to do with engine faults.

Tige runs the same(essentially) engine setup as Supra, Moomba, Malibu, Axis, MB, Sanger and Pavati. All from Indmar.

Well stated!

Malibu moved away from Indmar. They started marinizing their own GM packages. The LT4 looks bada$$!! Im not totally sure about this but I think they even went back to PCM on Axis in 19 but don't quote me on that. For sure Bu is getting their in house line tho.

I think part of the struggle is exhaust temps. Cats are meant to work with exhaust temp of 800* and outer jackets have to stay at 200* or less. So condensation becomes an issue as there is water vapor left over after combustion. Cant prove it...just know I pull out rusty o2s.....not just on Indmar.