www.iFourWinns.com

Don't hold your breath for better service when you buy your new boat. Warranty work never pays well and I think you will find it an issue on most boating forums regardless of brand.

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Current Boat: 2000 Four Winns 298 Vista
Previous Boat: 2000 Carver 406MY

NIce thing I guess about the boat we are looking at is it already long out of warranty which actually makes me feel better knowing I don't have to fight with someone to get it taken care of. I just fix it myself and its done. And done much sooner with less headaches!

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1998 Baja Boss 252 7.4L MPI Bravo 1 (SOLD)
2007 FW H200SS 5.0GXI (Sold)
2004 Chevy Silverado 2500 Crew 6.0L (tow vehicle)
1991 FW 170 Freedom 4.3L (SOLD)

My dealer was waiting for some warrenty parts for me. I got tired of waiting so I called Four Winns last week. First call and Ralph in the warrenty dept picked up and helped me out. He said he would look into it and call me back on Friday or first thing on Monday. Guess what?? He called me back on Monday. Sure made me feel better about the situation. Oh and my parts dealer got them!!

Thanks,

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Dennis

2007 H190
4.3 liter
Seattle WA

An update. I may have panicked initially when my call went unanswered for a day or two but I heard from my mechanic who heard from FW and I am pleased to report that they are responding to my needs and will be sending a top notch (from previous dealings) mechanic to work on my boat the beginning of next week.

I also heard directly from FW's warranty department to allay my fears that I was swinging in the breeze given their current circumstances. And I quote "For the record, we have been open and building boats throughout this reorg. We plan to be around for a long time to come." I sure hope so, up to now I really like my ownership experience and want to continue to feel good about boating.

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2008 Four Winns V358 (T 6.2L Merc Bravo III's with DTS and SeaCore)
2006 Sea Ray 340DA
2006 Sea Ray 320DA
2005 Maxum 3100 SE

Good - now everyone will want to keep their FW or not want to trade it for some other boat. Excuse gone!!!

That is the route I went with our current boat, spent approx $2k on fixing it up/cleaning/replacement parts, and 2 months time. Ended up with a decent little boat.
There really is not much on these boats/RVs that an average mechanic cant work on.

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2000 248 5.7L DP
'92, '94 SXI 750, '08 STX 15F, '12 Ultra LX 300
Videos

Spoke w/ my dealer today. Evidently the banks caught on and are making FW buyers sign and acknowledgement form stating that FW/Genmar is in chap 11 and they may/may not have a warranty... I'd hate to be a genmar dealer right now!!

Have your attorney send them litigation warning with the specific FW's warrentee verbiage and a third party estimate of repair. Do you have a paper trail? Give them one week to respond. Send it to the god damn CEO.

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Mojo
North East River, MD
04 268

And there you have it. The long and the short of it.

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2003 268 Four Winns Vista
F-350 King Ranch Diesel (Tow)
1990 Four Winns Fredom 180

Well we're much more fortunate than the Formula guys... They're being told to pound sand...

I wouldn't hold your breath for future warranty work. They basically had no interest in my problems - that are the direct result of extremely bad glass work.

My 328 has been out of the water for 3 months (at a now discounted $50 per day) still having things pulled apart and re glassed.

I have had 3 different "professional opinions" that all clearly blame the initial build quality of the vessel for allowing airconditioning condensation into the "glassed" timber substructure. This happened from the day the boat was launched.

Four Winns will not return calls or emails. They basically don't care in any way - I can only assume because they realise the amount of money it is costing to fix.

Will not ever see me in another Four Winns and seriously who would buy a boat after they sign a form acknowledging there may be no warranty ( even to dispute).

Cheers
Brett

Guys - I wouldn't get too worked up, as a Four Winns dealer that has been through this before when OMC owned the company. I know many of the folks in the warranty department have been at Four Winns forever, most of the issues I have read about with slow response are probably due to lack of follow up by the dealer. This unfortunate event (chapter 11) is not a result of issues with the Four Winns brand itself - it is a Genmar problem and Genmar is selling off some Genmar assets to get through these tough times. One of the Genmar issues has been the banks - they are not lending. Genmar has had larger notes than they are asking for and paid them back, but times are different.

Hang in there Four Winns will get thru this - Four Winns is a shinning star for Genmar.