www.iFourWinns.com

What should I do? We have a 2004 Four Winns 288 and the boat is in excellent condition with only 99 hours on the twin 5.0 gas Volvo Pentas and only 5 hours on the generator. Interior is immaculate and engines are in excellent condition. The outdrives, however were not cared for and electrolysis has eaten them up. They need to be replaced which will cost 20,000 for two brand new drives and the transom assemblies. I have only had the boat for 16 months and dont know if I can put that much more money into it. One of the drives is completely non- functioning at the moment with gimble housing and boot damage so it is either replace them or try and sell the boat the way it is. Is it possible to sell a boat that is in excellent condition other than it needs the new outdrives?

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Monica
gulls@play
Vista 288

I feel bad for you!! I would get a 2nd opion and price! You will lose on the trade, but the quistion is "how much". IF you do fix, you need to find out how it happened??? Do you have a wiring problem? You need to get to the root of it! If you do fix it, you KNOW you have a great boat in great condition. You can get rebuilt drives too.

I have very good credit, so I am always getting low to 0% card offers. Maybe you can do something like that??

The electrolysis caused damage to the interior of the outdrives and u joint broke and tore up the gimble housinh. We got a price on repair but its almost as much as new and then there is still the issue of not knowing how much more damage will occur later due to the interior damage/ The second outdrive needs new gimble bearings and the housing is in bad shape ,also.
I can do the 0% interest but its still 20,000. I guess my question is, can you sell a boat in the condition this one is in if you are up front about what it needs?

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Monica
gulls@play
Vista 288

I think the answer to that is, you can sell anything if the price is right. Your market would be very limited, not something that would appeal to the person just wanting to get into boating generally. I personally, think you will struggle.

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Regards
Beyond the Blue

"If we improve with age I'm now excellent"


Ex 1998 238 Vista 5.0Gi SX DP
Lexus RX300

Sorry to hear about your trouble. Either way your going to take the hit. If you want to continue boating I would start perusing craigslist and ebay and see if you can come up with anything. Maybe you can do one at a time. As you find parts. There has to be some good used parts out there, its just a matter of finding them.

In 5 minutes searching i came up with this. http://swmi.craigslist.org/boa/2371249541.html

I have no clue if it will work for you, but maybe some parts will and you can get that 20 down to 12 or 15, or maybe less if you luck out.

My advice is dont give up, spend a few weeks looking, I bet you can find some used outdrives and get that price down a bunch.

Good Luck

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Jeff

'14 Cruisers 380 Express "Simon Sez"
Merc 8.2 Mag MPI 380
DTS B3X, (x2) Axius Premier


(SOLD)
'08 V318
Merc 350 Mag MPI 300
DTS Seacore, B3 (x2)

I second the recommendation to look into replacement parts (as in, used). I'd have to imagine the time and money spent on replacing the bad parts would still be less than the hit you'd take on the resale value due to totally non-functioning outdrives.

Shop around for both the parts and a mechanic to install them. It's not terribly hard to install this sort of stuff, you don't have to use any one particular boat mechanic to do the job.

Just be warned that getting the job done just as the boating season starts is not always going to be easy. You might have better luck waiting until mid-season to find a mechanic that actually has the time to do the job. Rushing to get the job done now might backfire on you. You might end up with the boat stranded at a yard for weeks on end, as they work through their over-booked backlog.

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-Bill Kearney, 2005 348 Vista

Since these ladies are in Florida, they can boat year round', so early season, mid season is not relevant. I agree that you should keep looking for replacement parts, drives ,and repair what you can when you can. The thing that bothers me, is the fact that these drives deteriorated so quickly, saltwater or not, this should not happen on this year of boat, unless there is a problem that has yet to be detected. And whatever problem that is, could very well show up again on your replacement sterndrives. That would worry me alot.

If I was not 100% confident that after both drives were replaced, the corrosion issue was not fixed, I would sell the boat immediately. Before it is apparent to the future buyer that unsolved problems exist.

Good Luck to you.

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One of 4 Previous (Sold) Boats:
2000 Four Winns 268 Vista

Current Boat: 2004 Chaparral 235 ssi cuddy

+1 on making sure you find out the root cause.

Making sure the proper anodes are on the drives, all the bonding wires are there and hooked up and the galvanic isolators are there and working properly. Seems like any good boat mechanic could verify that!

I think there was discussion on a different thread that the boat is being dry racked. The issue had to be there from the previous owner i would think and they must have slipped it. If it was slipped near another boat that had allot of current leakage, and the previous owner did not maintain their anodes, could be one answer to how this occurred.

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Jeff

'14 Cruisers 380 Express "Simon Sez"
Merc 8.2 Mag MPI 380
DTS B3X, (x2) Axius Premier


(SOLD)
'08 V318
Merc 350 Mag MPI 300
DTS Seacore, B3 (x2)

I have a friend in Pensacola, FL who just upgraded his Volvo drives. Supposedly he had the same drives as you and they started to dissolve. He told me that Volvo has an upgrade program that allows you to have new ones installed at a fraction of the price because of the problem they have had with the old drives.

Give Legendary Marine service department in Destin a call. They did the work on his boat and could possible direct you in the right direction. Hope this helps. Good luck.

Mike

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R Yot 2
Fairhope, AL
2006 Vista 288

Interesting Mike. We will sure do that. I haven't been on the forum in a while because this situation with the outdrives is enough to put me in deep depression! Thanks everybody.

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Monica
gulls@play
Vista 288

Monica,

I see you posted on th digny davits, I was curious as to what you ended up doing on the outdrives and if you figured out the cause.

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Jeff

'14 Cruisers 380 Express "Simon Sez"
Merc 8.2 Mag MPI 380
DTS B3X, (x2) Axius Premier


(SOLD)
'08 V318
Merc 350 Mag MPI 300
DTS Seacore, B3 (x2)

We are fighting with the insurance company right now since we found out the the damage to the universal joint and the boot was caused by us hitting a sand bar. At the time, we didn't know any damage had been done but apparently the U-joint and gimble housing eventually broke and tore the boot. The mechanic at our marina said the damage was caused by corrosion (This was just from an external assessment) but there was no corrosion in the housing.
We ended up taking the boat to Legendary Marine as Mike suggested. These guys have been great in trying to keep the cost down and get insurance to pay. They are replacing the gimble housing, boot and universal joint. The outdrives do have the wrong anodes on them. They have changed them for us. Since this boat was a repo, we know it sat in a huge marina in California for months. So that in combination with the wrong anodes probably caused the corrosion. We keep the boat in the barn. The mechanic at Legendary seems to think we will be fine with the drives now that everything has been changed out.

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Monica
gulls@play
Vista 288

Awesome a happy ending!! Hooray!! I am so glad you are resolving your problem and it's not costing you 20 large. Thanks to this forum I found out when my boat was delivered that it also had the wrong type of anodes on it since it was always in fresh water and I was going to use her in salt water in miami. I changed the anodes and have no corrosion but if it wasn't for this forum I would've never changed them. Joe in Miami

Yep...this forum rocks!

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Monica
gulls@play
Vista 288