Looking at: Great maintenance history but used up??

[hartless]

Not finding this thru the search function, so I'm putting it out to all of you... Looking at an '06 Speedster 200 Wake (310HP version) that's got a great maintenance history according to the dealer records & a computer scan. The big "but" is that it's got 725hrs on it. For a 9-yr-old southern U.S. boat, is this too high on the hour meter or would it be in the legitimate range? I've got some experience w/ a 150 Speedster but it was the S/C version so I'm completely in the dark about longevity of N/A engines.

It's a 2nd-owner boat & I was told it's owners were watersport fans (wakeboard, skiing, some tubing). Since I'm up north, will be having an independent mechanic take it out on the water & give it a going-over, incl. compression test.

Along with wondering about hours, is there anything else I should ask the mechanic to look more closely at?

As always, your responses are very much appreciated...

- h

btw, if this one ends up to have one foot in the grave & the other on a banana peel, I'd love to hear of a Speedster 200 (w/ tower) looking for a good home in the "under-$15k" range!

 

[pete63]

Not finding this thru the search function, so I'm putting it out to all of you... Looking at an '06 Speedster 200 Wake (310HP version) that's got a great maintenance history according to the dealer records & a computer scan. The big "but" is that it's got 725hrs on it. For a 9-yr-old southern U.S. boat, is this too high on the hour meter or would it be in the legitimate range? I've got some experience w/ a 150 Speedster but it was the S/C version so I'm completely in the dark about longevity of N/A engines.

It's a 2nd-owner boat & I was told it's owners were watersport fans (wakeboard, skiing, some tubing). Since I'm up north, will be having an independent mechanic take it out on the water & give it a going-over, incl. compression test.

Along with wondering about hours, is there anything else I should ask the mechanic to look more closely at?

As always, your responses are very much appreciated...

- h

btw, if this one ends up to have one foot in the grave & the other on a banana peel, I'd love to hear of a Speedster 200 (w/ tower) looking for a good home in the "under-$15k" range!

WOW
thats a lot of hrs......
i suppose it depends on price..

re-looking at it, it is only around 7 hrs a month on avg

 

[LouDoo]

With that may hours I suspect it was a rental, it's a crap shoot. Is the dealer willing to give any kind of warranty?

Lou

 

[hartless]

Lou, I've talked to the dealer 3-4 times & completely forgot to bring up warrantying the boat... Thanks!

The prior 2 owners were private parties so it shouldn't be an issue of 100 different people driving it like they stole it. Having used my previous speedster atleast 4-5 evenings per week during an amazing summer of great weather, I guess I can see putting that many hrs on a boat since '06. My big question going into this one is more that, even with good regular maintenance, do the 155 engines have an upper limit for hours they'll run and how close is this one?

 

[Mudnman]

All pistons, rings, crank and bearings will only last so long.If I remember correctly,I was told my boat would need all those parts by 300 hrs.Theres some race dirt bikes that need a new piston at 25-30 hrs that aren't even raced!
I'm not sure what 300 motor that boat has,the info above was for a 4tec 215.I had no ties with that mechanic that told me that info.I'll ask him again tomorrow as we're now friends.

 

[Brian J]

In Minnesota we are spoiled with low hour boats, guys will agonize over how much more they should pay for a boat that has 80 hours vs 150 hours when really both are very low when looking at the life of a boat. A guy in Minnesota might not even go look at a boat with 500 hours because that's just too high, where as a Floridian would think "hey great, it has low hours!"

The non SC 4tec engines are very reliable, they are known to last for 2000-3000 hours. I'd say the biggest downside to the boat in question is it will be tough to resell here in Minnesota because of those hours.

If I remember correctly,I was told my boat would need all those parts by 300 hrs.

That is not correct, even for a SC'ed motor

Theres some race dirt bikes that need a new piston at 25-30 hrs that aren't even raced!

That is correct but not a relevant comparison to the motor in question.

 

[devonte007]

I agree with Brian J on this one, these N/A motors are known to run for thousands of hours if properly maintained. As mentioned above, on a 10yr old boat that is less than 100hrs per year. For boats, sitting around not being used can actually do more harm than being used regularly. Being used regularly is actually good for a motor.

I was just reading a recent issue of Boating Magazine and they were talking about this issue. Parts on boats have a tendency to corrode, rot and get brittle just by their very nature of being in a hot moist environment. I might actually feel safer buying a boat that was used regular rather than one that sat all the time as long as it was not abused.

That said you should be able to tell if the boat was well cared for just by taking a close look at the condition. Is it clean, polished, seats in good condition. Generally boat owners that keep impeccably clean boats also take care of the engines and vise versa.

Since the high hours you do need to be a bit more careful. At the very least I would do a compression test on the motors and have it plugged into the computer to take a look at any codes and to see how the engines were run. If you have BUDS or CANDOO you should be able to see a graph that represents time the engine spent at each RPM. As long as the compression checks out and the thing was not run at WOT all the time you should have a good boat.

 

[hartless]

Thanks everyone for the answers, advice, and things to think about! I'll be getting the CANDOO info from an independent dealership this week, and a water-test report from another mechanic next Monday so we'll see what happens after that.

Brian, you hit it right on the head about being spoiled... I got hooked on this one before I found out the hrs, then definitely cooled to the idea at first. Had I seen it right away, I'm pretty sure there's no way I'd have even thought about it. Of the searches I did for high hours on these engines, I think all the posts peaked around 400-500hrs.

If I wind up buying the thing, I'll try to update good/bad.

Thanks again!