Symptoms of a carbon ring gone bad?

[SheDevil]

Besides leaking into the hull, is there any other symptoms of a bad carbon ring? We bought 2 - 2012 GTI SE 130's from a dealer, I am pretty sure they never even looked at them and us being new to skis were oblivious. But first time out we couldn't flush them, the line was completely clogged (had to take to a shop to clean them out). Then we had cavitating on both of them. We ended up sucking out 2-3 gallons water total from both skis hulls. They only had 27 hours on them. Is poor steering related to the ring?

 

[IDoSeaDoo]

Wow, such young machines shouldn't be having any issues... very strange. Did you have cavitation right off the start, or did it develop some time into the ride? Water in the hull could definitely be due to bad carbon seals. You can put them in the water and lift up the little rubber cover drooping over the seal and see if it drips. If you're sucking in air, you're not pushing as much water, so yea, steering would be affected, but I am not sure to what extent. I wouldn't ride around with a cavitating pump long. It does damage to the pump parts.

 

[SheDevil]

Cavitation did not start immediately. Thanks for your input. They are dried out now and cleaned inside so the next time out we will do more investigating. It could just be inexperience as well, not having a point of reference.