New Owner...General Maintenance Help ?

[Beachy]

Took my GTX ski out on the water and somehow managed to lose the key. doh! Any idea how much average replacement key would be for a new key and programming? It is a 2006 4TEC.

Ski has about 27 hours on it and was last maintaned about 8 months ago. Use it 3+ times a month year round. How often should I get oil changed? Dealer quoted me $200 for maintenance check and oil change. Is that reasonable?

Being new to this I want to stay on top of it but that seems pretty expensive. In your opinion, what is minimum requirements for maintenance and oil changes? Is it based on hours or amount of time? Only 27 hrs but been out on water stored on lift dock for about 8 months. I do stay on top of flushing engines after each ride.

Appreciate any help and/or advise for this new jet ski owner.

Thanks!

 

[devonte007]

Bummer about the key, they are a bit costly. I think they can be purchased for about $50 unprogrammed, then you need to pay a dealer to program the key to your ski. I have heard it takes them about 15-20 min. to do this, you can calculate that to their hourly labor rate.

$200 for oil change and inspection is about normal. Since you are new to this machine it is probably not a bad idea to have someone with experience look it over and let you know if anything needs attention. After that it is up to you if you take the initiative and educate yourself to perform maintenance yourself. Most (if not all) of the routine maintenance items are easy to do yourself if you have time and a few new tools. First thing I did was read a lot of threads from this site, downloaded the shop manuals, and read up on what makes these watercraft work. The shop manuals can be downloaded as PDF files from this site, just click 'manuals' at the top of the page. They are extremely informative and how I learned much of what I know about working on my boat.

Most all maintenance on boats (and Seadoo's) is tied to running hours. Unfortunately for some of us, our watercraft stay in storage for over 6 months of the year, so then we need to resort to seasonal maintenance. Kind of like if you only drove your car 1,500 mi a year you would still want to replace your oil at least once a year. In your case, since you use it year round you would probably conform to the hourly maintenance schedule. If I remember correctly, oil and filter change every 100hrs or seasonally for us northerners. The maintenance chart should be in your operators manual. If you do not have one download it from the seadoo website:

http://www.operatorsguides.brp.com/SiteMods/OP_GUIDE/OPGUIDE_Login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fdefault.aspx%3fbrands%3dseadoo%2csportboat%26lang%3de%26type%3dog&brands=seadoo,sportboat&lang=e&type=og

So just spend some time reading up and familiarizing yourself with these machines. If you have any specific questions let us know and we'll do our best to help. Welcome to the site and the world of Seadoo's!

 

[statikuz]

These guys have the DESS keys for $33 (not sure if that's good, bad, or indifferent):

http://asset.lemansnet.com/static/sites/partsunlimited/flipper/2012Watercraft/#?page=40

You can get them for about the same on ebay but if you have a PU dealer that might be easier...?