I'm back and need help with some warranty advice!!!!!!!!
Fellow Tige Owners,
After a long time of lurking followed by a period of addiction to tigeowners.com, I have been forced back to you by unfortunate circumstances. I am in the midst of an unpleasant warranty issue, and I hope someone here may have an answer or lead for me. I love my Tige. It is a 2010 RZ2 that I custom ordered brand new. It throws the best surf wave on the lake. However, the last couple of seasons have proven to be more frustrating than fun. We took a risk buying new, because we wanted the security of a warranty and we were relatively new to boating. That decision is looking more and more like a mistake.
In 2011, during the second half of the boating season, I was behind the boat about to get a pull on a wakeskate when I heard sounds and experienced a loss of power in the holeshot I had never experienced before. We limped to the ramp, shut her down, and took her back to the dealer for diagnostics. At that time the boat was about 1 1/2 years old and had about 150 hrs on it without ever having a similar issue before. The boat was pretty much down for the season. The dealer diagnosed the problem as being low on transmission fluid, and it was. My concern was that "low tranny fluid" may have been the cause of the drive train refusing to go normally, but there had to be a cause for loss of the transmission fluid. After all, I had ran the boat for 150 hrs and had never experienced a loss in tranny fluid before. So, the dealer kept the boat for much of the off season figuring out what the cause of the issue was. It was returned to me around the end of 2011, and I anxiously awaited getting the boat back on the water in 2012. The dealer told me he went through all of the channels at PCM and did a warranty repair on the boat. He said that the problem was that one of the hoses that run back and forth from the transmission and the transmission cooler was shorter than it needed to be. He said this problem created stress on one of the fittings at the end of the hose that caused transmission fluid to leak. He further explained that it must be a design flaw, because when he tried to replace the hose in question, it was too short, and instead of using a factory hose, he used a different one to make sure the repair was effective. I wish I would have seen what
this was at the time. Now, after I have spent over two years dealing with this, I see, through hindsight, that is truly what it was. I was also told by the dealer, once the boat was returned to me, that he was no longer in the boat business and that someone who was nondealer had bought his shop. At this point, I was without a dealer but thankful this warranty issue had been taken care of before he left the industry.
On Memorial Day Weekend of 2012, my family eager boarded the boat, ready for fun on the lake. We had not run the boat since I got possession of it back in the middle of winter. It felt smooth after being serviced. My dealer had said he took the boat to a nearby lake to help diagnose the issue. We had no idea that we would experience the very same issue on that first weekend back out on the lake. The symptoms surfaced quickly. The same issues were happening. I had suddenly had no power on the hole shot, there was a weird feel to the drivetrain, and it even smelled some. I immediately shut the boat down, checked the transmission fluid, and found it to be dry (of course, it was full when we started). I was physically ill. I couldn't believe it. I wasn't thinking straight and figured for sure that the new hose that was put on failed again. I was also worried about the prospect of getting this issue fixed without a dealer. Since I live in Cincinnati, OH but was on Norris Lake, TN at the time, I limped the boat back to the ramp, filled the tranny with fluid, and searched to see if there was a Tige Dealer nearby that would be more convenient. After all, there was not, and still is not to my knowledge, a Tige dealer within hundreds of miles to Cincinnati. To my surprise I found that one of the marinas I am quite familiar with on that very lake had just became a Tige dealer. So, with a trip to Walmart for some tranny fluid under my belt, I took the boat over to this new dealer to see what I should do about the situation.
I couldn't have been more pleased with my first encounter with Bryan at Shanghai Marina and what is now Aquaknox Marine. Without ever having met me before and not having an appointment, Bryan opened up the floor of the boat and engine compartment with me to try to find out what was going on. I communicated to him everything that the previous dealer had told me. While he was new to inboards, he told me that my previous dealer's comments didn't make much sense. We felt around everywhere that was relatively accessible, and couldn't find where the fluid was coming from. I expressed my concerns about having boating vacations later in the summer paid for and not having a dealer to re-repair a warranty issue. Fortunately, I wasn't planning on boating much between Memorial Day weekend and the month of August, since I was studying for the Bar Exam that I took that July. However, we had a house on the lake already rented for the whole month of August, and we planned on enjoying the boat that we continuously pay so much money for. Unfortunately, while Bryan was a Tige dealer, he had just become one, and he didn't have his mechanic on staff yet. He explained that there was nothing he could do for me immediately, and he wouldn't be able to help me until after he got his mechanic in early 2013. He told me to continuously monitor the fluid level while I used the boat, filling the tranny with fluid as needed until I could get it properly diagnosed and repaired.
In July, I took (and passed thankfully) the Bar Exam and immediately focused my attention on the boat. I contacted Tige to see what I should do about the issue, since there were no dealers nearby and the dealer at Norris Lake didn't have a mechanic. They informed me that the issue was actually PCM's, since it is part of the engine warranty. They gave me a contact there, and I contacted PCM. When I talked to PCM, I asked them if they would have a problem with taking the boat to a dealer of other makes of boats that use PCM engines. No Wake Marine, a long time Malibu dealer in Cincinnati, had recently taken on Correct Craft. PCM said that was fine with them, and I contacted No Wake. No Wake agreed to take on the project at the end of the season, and I hoped that the issue would be solved once and for all.
I spoke with No Wake a couple of times during the offseason, and they told me that instead of replacing the transmission and simply installing a new one as they hoped, PCM instructed them to take out the tranny pack it up, and send it to PCM's facility for them to repair. They also indicated that there was a problem with a seal. This was the first time I had heard anything about a different diagnosis. Shortly before Memorial Day Weekend 2013, the transmission, having been allegedly fix by PCM, was reinstalled by No Wake, turned back over to us, and we headed to the lake with our boat.
Once again, on Memorial Day weekend, disaster struck. Within one day of boating, our transmission was drained of fluid and we experienced the exact same symptoms all over again. We were crushed. We continued to fill the tranny with transmission fluid through the weekend and also revisited Aquaknox Marine on the lake. At this point, Bryan had his mechanic, and both have continued to be supportive. During the offseason, Bryan had heard about what was going on with the boat at No Wake and was shocked to find that the issue was still there. Since I wasn't planning on boating again until a long July 4th weekend, we left the boat with Aquaknox and they pledged to test it and diagnose it. They drained the bilge, put rags on the bottom, and took the boat out. They finally, for the first time I know of, water tested the boat and came up with a logical diagnosis. They said there was an issue with the shaft seal and that if you looked from the right angle, you could actually see tranny fluid flicking out from the seal as the shaft spins. The problem was that they said that this was an offseason fix for them, and I think they wanted to make sure that their efforts were going to be paid for under the warranty. It was decided that we would continue to replace the fluid as we were previously and then we could revisit how we would get it fixed at the end of the season. In the meantime, Aquaknox was going to be communicating with PCM about the issue. As with the previous summer, we already had vacations paid for, and we needed the boat. At no time were we told by any dealer cease what we were doing.
Throughout the rest of this past summer, I heard of virtually no communication between Aquaknox and PCM. At the end of the summer, due to the uncertainty of how the boat was going to be repaired, I took the boat home and continued to try to communicate with Aquaknox. Just as I lost hope and decided I would start dealing with PCM myself, I received an email from the mechanic of Aquaknox that was a forward of an email from the warranty folks at PCM. The email clearly indicated that PCM held a very adversarial stance to us. They questioned why we continued to use the boat, despite the fact that I explained that it was at the suggestion of a Tige dealer in an email I sent to Aquaknox that was forwarded to PCM. They were positioning themselves to me as culpable for my transmission issue despite the clear fact that the boat at no point was ever successfully repaired. It is clear that the boat was never re-broke. After two attempts at repair by Tige/PCM agents/dealers, the exact same symptoms were there and the boat remained broke.
After a long time of lurking followed by a period of addiction to tigeowners.com, I have been forced back to you by unfortunate circumstances. I am in the midst of an unpleasant warranty issue, and I hope someone here may have an answer or lead for me. I love my Tige. It is a 2010 RZ2 that I custom ordered brand new. It throws the best surf wave on the lake. However, the last couple of seasons have proven to be more frustrating than fun. We took a risk buying new, because we wanted the security of a warranty and we were relatively new to boating. That decision is looking more and more like a mistake.
In 2011, during the second half of the boating season, I was behind the boat about to get a pull on a wakeskate when I heard sounds and experienced a loss of power in the holeshot I had never experienced before. We limped to the ramp, shut her down, and took her back to the dealer for diagnostics. At that time the boat was about 1 1/2 years old and had about 150 hrs on it without ever having a similar issue before. The boat was pretty much down for the season. The dealer diagnosed the problem as being low on transmission fluid, and it was. My concern was that "low tranny fluid" may have been the cause of the drive train refusing to go normally, but there had to be a cause for loss of the transmission fluid. After all, I had ran the boat for 150 hrs and had never experienced a loss in tranny fluid before. So, the dealer kept the boat for much of the off season figuring out what the cause of the issue was. It was returned to me around the end of 2011, and I anxiously awaited getting the boat back on the water in 2012. The dealer told me he went through all of the channels at PCM and did a warranty repair on the boat. He said that the problem was that one of the hoses that run back and forth from the transmission and the transmission cooler was shorter than it needed to be. He said this problem created stress on one of the fittings at the end of the hose that caused transmission fluid to leak. He further explained that it must be a design flaw, because when he tried to replace the hose in question, it was too short, and instead of using a factory hose, he used a different one to make sure the repair was effective. I wish I would have seen what
this was at the time. Now, after I have spent over two years dealing with this, I see, through hindsight, that is truly what it was. I was also told by the dealer, once the boat was returned to me, that he was no longer in the boat business and that someone who was nondealer had bought his shop. At this point, I was without a dealer but thankful this warranty issue had been taken care of before he left the industry.On Memorial Day Weekend of 2012, my family eager boarded the boat, ready for fun on the lake. We had not run the boat since I got possession of it back in the middle of winter. It felt smooth after being serviced. My dealer had said he took the boat to a nearby lake to help diagnose the issue. We had no idea that we would experience the very same issue on that first weekend back out on the lake. The symptoms surfaced quickly. The same issues were happening. I had suddenly had no power on the hole shot, there was a weird feel to the drivetrain, and it even smelled some. I immediately shut the boat down, checked the transmission fluid, and found it to be dry (of course, it was full when we started). I was physically ill. I couldn't believe it. I wasn't thinking straight and figured for sure that the new hose that was put on failed again. I was also worried about the prospect of getting this issue fixed without a dealer. Since I live in Cincinnati, OH but was on Norris Lake, TN at the time, I limped the boat back to the ramp, filled the tranny with fluid, and searched to see if there was a Tige Dealer nearby that would be more convenient. After all, there was not, and still is not to my knowledge, a Tige dealer within hundreds of miles to Cincinnati. To my surprise I found that one of the marinas I am quite familiar with on that very lake had just became a Tige dealer. So, with a trip to Walmart for some tranny fluid under my belt, I took the boat over to this new dealer to see what I should do about the situation.
I couldn't have been more pleased with my first encounter with Bryan at Shanghai Marina and what is now Aquaknox Marine. Without ever having met me before and not having an appointment, Bryan opened up the floor of the boat and engine compartment with me to try to find out what was going on. I communicated to him everything that the previous dealer had told me. While he was new to inboards, he told me that my previous dealer's comments didn't make much sense. We felt around everywhere that was relatively accessible, and couldn't find where the fluid was coming from. I expressed my concerns about having boating vacations later in the summer paid for and not having a dealer to re-repair a warranty issue. Fortunately, I wasn't planning on boating much between Memorial Day weekend and the month of August, since I was studying for the Bar Exam that I took that July. However, we had a house on the lake already rented for the whole month of August, and we planned on enjoying the boat that we continuously pay so much money for. Unfortunately, while Bryan was a Tige dealer, he had just become one, and he didn't have his mechanic on staff yet. He explained that there was nothing he could do for me immediately, and he wouldn't be able to help me until after he got his mechanic in early 2013. He told me to continuously monitor the fluid level while I used the boat, filling the tranny with fluid as needed until I could get it properly diagnosed and repaired.
In July, I took (and passed thankfully) the Bar Exam and immediately focused my attention on the boat. I contacted Tige to see what I should do about the issue, since there were no dealers nearby and the dealer at Norris Lake didn't have a mechanic. They informed me that the issue was actually PCM's, since it is part of the engine warranty. They gave me a contact there, and I contacted PCM. When I talked to PCM, I asked them if they would have a problem with taking the boat to a dealer of other makes of boats that use PCM engines. No Wake Marine, a long time Malibu dealer in Cincinnati, had recently taken on Correct Craft. PCM said that was fine with them, and I contacted No Wake. No Wake agreed to take on the project at the end of the season, and I hoped that the issue would be solved once and for all.
I spoke with No Wake a couple of times during the offseason, and they told me that instead of replacing the transmission and simply installing a new one as they hoped, PCM instructed them to take out the tranny pack it up, and send it to PCM's facility for them to repair. They also indicated that there was a problem with a seal. This was the first time I had heard anything about a different diagnosis. Shortly before Memorial Day Weekend 2013, the transmission, having been allegedly fix by PCM, was reinstalled by No Wake, turned back over to us, and we headed to the lake with our boat.
Once again, on Memorial Day weekend, disaster struck. Within one day of boating, our transmission was drained of fluid and we experienced the exact same symptoms all over again. We were crushed. We continued to fill the tranny with transmission fluid through the weekend and also revisited Aquaknox Marine on the lake. At this point, Bryan had his mechanic, and both have continued to be supportive. During the offseason, Bryan had heard about what was going on with the boat at No Wake and was shocked to find that the issue was still there. Since I wasn't planning on boating again until a long July 4th weekend, we left the boat with Aquaknox and they pledged to test it and diagnose it. They drained the bilge, put rags on the bottom, and took the boat out. They finally, for the first time I know of, water tested the boat and came up with a logical diagnosis. They said there was an issue with the shaft seal and that if you looked from the right angle, you could actually see tranny fluid flicking out from the seal as the shaft spins. The problem was that they said that this was an offseason fix for them, and I think they wanted to make sure that their efforts were going to be paid for under the warranty. It was decided that we would continue to replace the fluid as we were previously and then we could revisit how we would get it fixed at the end of the season. In the meantime, Aquaknox was going to be communicating with PCM about the issue. As with the previous summer, we already had vacations paid for, and we needed the boat. At no time were we told by any dealer cease what we were doing.
Throughout the rest of this past summer, I heard of virtually no communication between Aquaknox and PCM. At the end of the summer, due to the uncertainty of how the boat was going to be repaired, I took the boat home and continued to try to communicate with Aquaknox. Just as I lost hope and decided I would start dealing with PCM myself, I received an email from the mechanic of Aquaknox that was a forward of an email from the warranty folks at PCM. The email clearly indicated that PCM held a very adversarial stance to us. They questioned why we continued to use the boat, despite the fact that I explained that it was at the suggestion of a Tige dealer in an email I sent to Aquaknox that was forwarded to PCM. They were positioning themselves to me as culpable for my transmission issue despite the clear fact that the boat at no point was ever successfully repaired. It is clear that the boat was never re-broke. After two attempts at repair by Tige/PCM agents/dealers, the exact same symptoms were there and the boat remained broke.
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