Looking to buy Spark

[rcgop]

I'm a long time Seadoo owner, but I have only ever had 2-strokes. I now live on a quiet, calm lake and am tired of the high fuel usage and constant maintenance of my 20 plus year old skis. I am looking to buy a Spark. I know I want IBR and 3 up. Can I get some other basic information about years and things to look out for when buying used? Thanks so much!

 

[rcgop]

To clarify, one guy I messaged with said there are drive shaft issues pre-2017, but he was trying to get me to buy his. Can someone verify that? I'm looking at a 2016 this weekend with 90 HP and IBR. Are there other known issues? Does anyone suggest that buying a Spark is a bad way to go? My limited research hasn't given me pause on buying one.

 

[Spider4real]

I was looking at Sparks a while back and did a bunch of research. There were issues with the driveshaft/PTO coupler rusting and stripping out on 2014 and 2015 models. If it fails you will need a whole new crankshaft or find a machine shop that can thread the end of the driveshaft so it can accept the new style coupler. Some people perminitly welded the drivehsft to the engine. While this works it is likely to lead to some other failures since there is now zero movement possible. It's also impossible to tell what is going on with the spark you are looking at without taking it apart. They made a change to the coupler on the crankshaft mid 2016. So some 2016's will be ok, some potentially not. There was a manufacturing date you could go by to determine if a 2016 had the new style coupler or old, but I no longer remeber what it was. To be safe I would only buy a 2017 and up if it was me. Good luck.

 

[Table83]

If you can find a dealer that is not going to mark it up too much, it's worth it to buy new. The new ones supposedly have fixed the issue with the drive shaft. But dealers are slimy and I am always disgusted everytime I talk to them.