My (Mis)Adventures with a new to me 2011 Challenger 180 SE 255

[Jpons]

(I have been unable to post this message in it's entirety on a single post so I am breaking it up into a few parts)
(Part 1)

TLDR: have had one issue after another with my new to me Challenger, intercooler, surging, coils, oil pressure sensor, throttle cable, air intake temperature sensor, intake manifold...

More than a month ago I went deep into the SeaDoo poll and purchased a 2011 Challenger 180 SE 255. While a little on the expensive side, this boat had only 19 hours on the clock. The PO told me that it had been owned previous to him by a wealthy individual who used it one season and then it sat in a barn (or something like it) ever since.

The boat is in great shape, with all the cushions in good shape and a spotless engine bay. My first mistake was purchasing the boat without taking it into the water, we did start the engine and despite the engine surging a bit it seemed to be doing ok. You could say I was a bit eager to buy the boat as I had lost the opportunity to buy 3 other boats (non seadoos) because people had shown up with cash on hand hours if not minutes before me. So yes this pandemic has created a sellers market for sure.

I live in Maine, and the boat was in MA, and I inspected the boat on my way to business thing in PA. After I inspected the boat and we agreed on a price I gave him a deposit with the promise to wire the rest before I came back to pick up the boat on my way home 5 days later.

A couple of points I want to make before we continue.

1. The seller of the boat seems to be a standup guy, and has been great at responding to messages and calls from me when I have had trouble. He is knowledgable about SeaDoos and sold this one because he also had a 210 that he was keeping.

2. I am mechanically inclined and can repair just about anything with the proper instructions and/or shop manual. I restored a 1961 MGA which had pigs sleeping in it when I was 15 years old, that car went to win many awards. I am just mentioning that to show that I can turn a wrench.

Like I mentioned before I paid a little more than I wanted but felt ok about it because the PO had the super charger rebuilt about 6 months prior and he had also replaced the carbon seal.

While I was in PA the PO sent me a video of him on the boat out on the water with the boat running like a champ.

As I was about to pick up the boat (leaving PA to head back to MA and then home to ME) the PO asked if we could delay the pickup because he wanted to replace the intercooler as he suspected it was leaking. Since the PO was over 3 hours away from me we decided that I would take the boat, he would order a new intercooler and have it shipped to me and I would do the install.

Once I got home I removed the intercooler and confirmed that in fact it was leaking, good thing the PO was having one shipped to me. As soon as it arrived I installed the new intercooler and was eager to get on the water. Luckily for me I live literally 2 minutes from the boat ramp on a sizable lake in Maine.

The day after I installed the new intercooler the entire family made plans to take the boat to the lake for it's maiden voyage.

After getting the boat in the water, and the entire family on board we started the engine and everything seemed great. This jet steering is definitely different than any other boat I have used. I had read that and was kind prepared, but still it's most definitely different.

We pull out of the dock and start of slow pulling away. I do notice the engine is surging some, the revs keep bumping up and down. Still I persevere, and start revving it up, as soon as hit 3,500 rpms the most deafening steady high pitch beep comes on and I notice a message about low oil pressure. I am thinking to myself, crap, this can't be happening. But yes it is.

To be continued on next post

 

[Jpons]

(Part 2)

After talking to the PO, who is surprised by this and doing some troubleshooting, my best guess is that the oil pressure switch is faulty. So I call my local SeaDoo dealers and find that one which is an hour away has the part. Drive down to get it and a few days later go about the task of replacing it. This takes far longer than I wanted because first I did not have any Torx e tools, and I also did not have a socket deep enough to remove and install the new oil pressure sensor. Finally after procuring all the tools that I need and removing so many parts to get to the oil pressure sensor I was successful in replacing the sensor.

I go to start the boat and get once again the dreaded steady high pitch scream that makes my ears bleed. Seriously, could they have not used a different noise that makes one of my dogs run away and cower in fear (I am serious about this).

Super frustrated, I take the boat to the SeaDoo dealer and they tell me it may be 2-3 weeks because they are fully booked. Crap!

A little over a week later they call me to tell me the boat is ready. I asked what was wrong. They tell me I had installed the wrong oil pressure sensor.... wait a second, they are the ones that sold me the sensor to begin with. No time to argue. Pay the $250 and head home, we are eager to get on the water.

A day or two later we are able to get on the water, no crazy alarms this time, but the boat is surging like crazy and won't go above 20 mph. WTF. I put in a few cans of seafoam and boat runs much better, maybe I had some bad fuel...

Continued on next post

 

[LionOnABeach]

Oh man...I’m interested in how this shakes out. Keep posting man; you’re among friends here and we’ll share in your pain and joy!

 

[MacSeaDoo]

Dude,

You need the Candoo software....period. I bought it for my new to me 2011 speedster 150 255. Same engine.

Similar story to you. New to jet boats bought a 2011 speedster 150 255 that was owned by someone OCD like me. It was surging a bit on first run. Chalked it up to last years gas. Got worse and worse until it started running poorly. Started replacing sensors. Then pulled the SC. Then tested the IC. Leaked like a fountain. Replaced. Also was building water in the bilge. Turned out to be a hole in the exhaust can. Welded that up.

Now it is dry and runs like it never did. 8100 rpms. No surging or bogging. I bought the Candoo software and now can see all sensors and codes. Can activate or drop individual items like coils and injectors. No more guessing if my map, tps, temp sensors, etc are bad.

I am a gear head so will do the work myself as a necessity because at one pont I said screw it and was going to bring it to the dealer. 3 week wait to look at it. No way man, my season would be gone.

BTW I am in NB Canada, just next door to you.

 

[Jpons]

I have no idea what is going here. I have been trying to upload the entire writeup for a couple of days, and have been unable to, i tired braking it up and still get errors everytime I try to upload. I've tried 3 different browsers (Safari, Firefox and Chrome) I sanitized the text to ensure to control character or anything funky, and I get errors everytime I try to post even small parts of the write up.

This is the error I am getting: https://take.ms/eVjYb

Any ideas anyone?

 

[LionOnABeach]

I have no idea what is going here. I have been trying to upload the entire writeup for a couple of days, and have been unable to, i tired braking it up and still get errors everytime I try to upload. I've tried 3 different browsers (Safari, Firefox and Chrome) I sanitized the text to ensure to control character or anything funky, and I get errors everytime I try to post even small parts of the write up.

This is the error I am getting: https://take.ms/eVjYb

Any ideas anyone?

Are you copy/paste from Word or something?

 

[Jpons]

Yes I am trying to paste the text. I wrote it up on a plain text editor, not word or anything like that. Meaning there is no formatting at all.

Are you copy/paste from Word or something?

 

[LionOnABeach]

Yes I am trying to paste the text. I wrote it up on a plain text editor, not word or anything like that. Meaning there is no formatting at all.

I’ve had goofy things happen before with copy/paste in any format with forums based in vBulletin and Simple Machines. Not sure if this one on XenForo does filing things though.

 

[Jpons]

(Part 3)

A few days later eager to get back on the water we go back out on the boat and again the boat is surging like crazy, this time I can go faster maybe 30mph but the boat surges quite a bit at some rpms and just a little at others. I start to lose my mind and decide I am going to try a few more things.

About a week later (this is what it takes to get parts mailed in) I replace the coils and the spark plugs and head back out to the water. Wow, the boat is now running great. WOT it's a blast and we fianlly have a great day on the water. Yes, finally after more than a month of tourbkle shooting we have a great running boat.

Not for long though.....

The following weekend we decide to visit another lake that is about 30 minutes way and we confidently launch the boat, and idle out into the lake. I then start to accelerate and hit about 25mph when all of a sudden the boat goes back into idle suddenly. WTF WTF WTF.....

Throttle lever moves without any resistance and I confirm the throttle cable just snapped. It was frayed right by the lever.... What luck!

Order new cable. Cable arrives on friday and I replace it quickly and easily. Ready to head out to the lake the next day.

Continued on next post.

 

[dsm]

I had the same experience with my 2009 Challenger 180 SE, a few trips after I bought it low oil pressure warning. I ended up putting a mechanical oil pressure gauge on temporarily which verified the pressure was at the very high end of normal, not low at all. Replaced the sensor and all has been fine since.

The oil pressure sensor is ignored under 3500 RPM which is why you don't see it until then. It seems the failure mode is that they leak oil internally into the switch contacts which causes them to read open even when they aren't since oil is an insulator.

 

[Jpons]

Yes the issue is most definately copying the text in. I just re-typed part 3 right into the browser and that posted without issue. WTF... This is insane that I can't just copy and paste the text in that I wrote yesterday.

 

[Jpons]

(Part 4)

On Saturday we put the boat back out on the water and things seem great.... at first... Once I hit about 3k rpms I get the dreaded beep of death again and now I have a fault code on the dash. Crap... Can't I just get a break here???

Fault code I am getting is P0111. Look it up while on the water and it seems I now have a faulty manifold temperature sensor. Looks easy to replace.... Order a new one along with a new washer.

I get the new sensor and washer in the mail yesterday and go about replacing the sensor thinking this is going to be a quick job and should take 30 minutes max... right....


Again I need a 3/4 deep socket to get this sucker out and replace it. Make a run to the local hardware store and come back with the right socket. As I try and remove the sensor I am encountering A LOT of resistance, it seems this guy is seized!!!! I put on some penetrating oil, tap the bolt trying to losen it. No luck. Nothing I do will get the sensor to come loose.

If you are familiar with this sensor the out side of the sensor is plastic (this includes the "bolt" part) while the core is metal. There is no budging it so I apply more pressure and then the plastic just strips. Now I have to resort to using some vise grips in order to remove it. Finally it's turning! Yeah! Oh crap..... noooooo. The sensor bolts onto the air intake manifold which is also plastic, however the place where the sensor bolts onto has a metal nut for the sensor to bolt into. It appears that this bolt is now turning within the plastic manifold housing. Still the sensor won't come out. After looking a little closer it does not appear that there is a washer where there is supposed to be one so the sensor we possibly replaced at some point and either they applied red loctite to it (the shop manual does not specify loctite) or the fact that they did not install the washer (the shop manual states it should be replaced), caused the sensor to seize and stick to the metal threads in the air intake manifold.

Crap crap crap.... What an ordeal.

Continued on the next post

 

[Jpons]

(Part 5 - Final)

I look up the cost of a new intake manifold and they are about $500!!! I started looking for a used one and found quite a few available and ordered one that looked in great shape for a small fraction of a new one. I also ordered all gaskets used. Might as well replace them while I have the thing taken apart.

Parts should be here next week (Aug 3rd) and I will get to taking apart and putting back together the manifold

I tried to keep this brief, but as you can see with all the issues I have had this is a brief as I could keep it.

I don't blame you if you did not make it this far in my post.

If you did, and have some advice for me while I am replacing the manifold, I would greatly appreciate it.

Does anyone know if I will in fact have to have the reset the TPS as the shop manual states?

Hope you enjoyed my (mis)adventures with the Challenger.

I am starting to get discouraged by this boat...

Juan

P.S. I had the hardest time posting this. If I tried to post this all on one post I would get an error. Then the site went down. I then tried to break it up and was able to upload part 1 and then I was not able to connect back to the forums. I am starting to think that I have bad juju anything SeaDoo

 

[Jpons]

Wew! I finally figured out a way around the copy/paste issue. Turn off javascript, copy text, delete the last 10 or so characters of the post. Retype those deleted characters and post.... Crazy....

 

[Jpons]

I have really considered it. Trust me and I may end up getting it if I do decide to keep this boat. After all the issues I have had even if I remedy them my confidence is kinda shot. I would be weary of taking this boat to far out for fear something else may come up. I am not giving up on it just yet, but not feeling great about it at the moment.

The other issue with Candoo is that it only runs on windows and we do not own a windows machine, only macs. Yes I could run something with parallels but I am just not sure I want to deal with that in addition to everything else I am doing on the boat.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Dude,

You need the Candoo software....period. I bought it for my new to me 2011 speedster 150 255. Same engine.

Similar story to you. New to jet boats bought a 2011 speedster 150 255 that was owned by someone OCD like me. It was surging a bit on first run. Chalked it up to last years gas. Got worse and worse until it started running poorly. Started replacing sensors. Then pulled the SC. Then tested the IC. Leaked like a fountain. Replaced. Also was building water in the bilge. Turned out to be a hole in the exhaust can. Welded that up.

Now it is dry and runs like it never did. 8100 rpms. No surging or bogging. I bought the Candoo software and now can see all sensors and codes. Can activate or drop individual items like coils and injectors. No more guessing if my map, tps, temp sensors, etc are bad.

I am a gear head so will do the work myself as a necessity because at one pont I said screw it and was going to bring it to the dealer. 3 week wait to look at it. No way man, my season would be gone.

BTW I am in NB Canada, just next door to you.

 

[LionOnABeach]

Oh man, I can feel your frustration! Especially when it craps out with family looking towards a great day. Definitely nothing you’ve done, just crap luck. The only think I can think of is that with so few hours and being 9 years old, it sat for a loooong time in between use. Or maybe sat in a non-temp controlled environment and went through a lot of hot/cold cycles. Still, no way to know with most of these issues unless you tear it apart first. Don’t know about TPS, but maybe search the forum. Someone will probably drop in later with advice too.
Good luck!

 

[Macker29]

The boat sat for wayyyyyy too long. I'm not surprised there were multiple issues having sat for so long.

Stick with the boat...once you get all of these issues ironed out, she'll be a great boat for you. But this season will likely be trial and error for you.

 

[MacSeaDoo]

Here is the problem on the TPS.. It has a reading range beyond the range of the throttle movement range. Because of this, you need to tell the ECU what value is 0, i.e throttle closed. the TPS also has some play in the screw mounts so even if you remove it, you technically will need to reset to 0.

I put a new TPS on mine and it seemed to run and idle ok, but still ram poorly because of the leaking IC. I ended up driving mine to a dealer to get the to reset. (Now i have the software and can do it myself)

On a technical front, if the TPS was not showing 0 when the throttle was closed, you will have issue with idle because of the idle control is activated with the throttle at 0 (closed) Also, I have no idea if the ECU will tollerate

These engines do not have O2 sensors downstream so their fuel mapping is static based on TPS, Air Temp, and MAP. The crappy part of all of this is that if the maps are applied wrong because of wrong inputs, you could be in a position of running lean, which can have long term effects on engine longevity. There is not post combustion feedback loop as a measure of A/F ratios.

 

[JPass]

The boat sat for wayyyyyy too long. I'm not surprised there were multiple issues having sat for so long.

Stick with the boat...once you get all of these issues ironed out, she'll be a great boat for you. But this season will likely be trial and error for you.

Couldn't agree more.

 

[MacSeaDoo]

I agree on the stick with it.

 

[Jpons]

I wanted to post an update.

After a false start I was able to get the right intake manifold, a used one but in excellent shape. I replaced the one on the boat with the replacement, replaced the MAST sensor and now the boat runs like a champ.

Smooth, powerful and fast. I can see why people love these boats, they seem to plane immediately and are fun to maneuver.

Despite all this we have decided to sell the boat. Not because of the mis-adventures, but because the boat is simply not big enough for us. We really needed something a bit bigger.

Last week I purchased a new to me 2014 Four Winns Horizon 200. Not as fast as the challenger but MUCH more roomy. As I embark on a new adventure with this boat I am already jealous of the resources available for the SeaDoo boats despite the fact that they stopped being manufactured after 2012. Finding parts for the SeaDoo has been easy. Finding parts for the Four Winns can be a challenge.

Thanks.

 

[MacSeaDoo]

Glad to hear that you got it sorted and that you found another boat that fits your needs better. My 150 is small too and we are thinking the same next year maybe going up to something that can haul 2 full families.

BTW, I have owned FourWinns boats in the past and loved them. I would love an HDX 270 with Outboard but there are few of them used in Canada.