Old man green should subtract at least $3000 from the asking price, otherwise that's an amazing vessel especially with through hull exhaust

LOL, green was not our first choice (on either of our boats) but sometimes you forgo your favorite color to find the best boat.

With our H180, we looked at a slightly newer and local black H180 with same options first, but went with the green H180 as it was better cared for even though it was 2 hours away. With that said, these two remain the only H180s I have seen optioned with the fuel injected VP 5.0 Gi 250hp V8 engines.

When looking at a few Cobalt 246 boats, I came across a blue one first. The blue one had less hours but had the 310hp 454 MPI and was no where as clean as the green Cobalt 246. The blue one had stained seats, unwaxed gel coat, etc. It did not look loved. We could have had the blue one for $4,000 less than our agreed upon price for the green 246 but I think we made the right choice with our one owner, cleaner, marina maintained, higher HP example. The green one is also half the distance away.

Marina maintained doesn't mean it's better. As far as we know the mechanic is using bulk oil and chinese parts. Stained seats clean up in 5 minutes with sodium hydroxide, and all gelcoat fades it. It looks like brand new with a buffer that's just a fact of ownership. Always do a compression test of the engine and drain a tad of oil from the outdrive bottom to see if it has milkshake.

My boat if you seen it a month ago you'd think it was a wreck. Stained seats, faded hull. Why? It's used all the time. It's kept in tip-top mechanical shape with OEM parts. It runs and purrs like a kitten. It's carbed and starts and idles like fuel injection....cold or hot. Couple hours with a buffer and a bottle of cleaner and it looks showroom condition. Total cost of "cleanup" was $150 and 8 hours of my time.

I can do a lot of repairs and upgrades on a boat with $4000. That's 2-3 years worth of gas.

THE selling point is that motor!!! WOOOHOOO!

I have to agree - If someone is not going to spend the $150 on getting it cleaned up, they've probably neglected other areas as well. Not saying you cannot put lipstick on a pig, but it matters.

That said - When I look at ads the 3 things I don't want to see, and I think these are pretty universal:

1) Your crap all over the place. Remove your beach chairs, floaties, dishes, paper towels, etc. It looks like crap.
2) Clean surfaces. Coffee stains by the sink make me think you are a slob that has puked on your carpet once if not a few times.
3) A picture of you and your buddies on the boat. It makes me think you ran the hell out of it every weekend.

Having bought enough boats in my life this I can tell you: Always buy the boat that's used every weekend even if it needs cleaning up. Sitting in a garage 364 days a year does more damage. You know the boat that's constantly used works.

Unfortunately the decision maker (the wife/gf) always prefer the pretty boat that's sitting in a garage for the last 10 years un-used. Those are the owners that coin the saying "The best day of your life is when you buy and sell your boat" cause everything is dry rotted and it's constantly breaking down.

I'm not saying that boat is bad.. a professional survey will be the judge of that.

You're getting it inspected before purchase, right?

RIGHT?!

The Cobalt dealer that has serviced the boat since new is going to look it over prior to a sea trial...including a compression test.

Have em pull the drive, check the drive shaft, bearings, bellows, engine compression, and look over everything else in general. Shouldn't cost you more than $350.

According to the detailed invoices, that was all checked along with the impeller replacement when they winterized the boat before this winter.