Hey Guys,
Just thought I'd share with you our recent experience..!
Our 205 Sundowner went in for service 2 weeks ago, just the routine engine and outdrive service and to have a starting problem looked into!
All things went well and we unfortunately identified the starting problem to be the starter motor itself, so we had to replace that..
However....
When they came to do the final running checks, they noticed that the gears could not be engaged and that the shift cable was completely jammed (we did have a problem last year but managed to get it moving). But this time it was completely gone..

however when they tried to get a replacement.. the mechanics tried to get a cable that may work, this then took 5 days to arrive and thus went into the start of our planned holiday, which when did arrive, was the wrong one....
Anyone, well most people can use google, seemingly not our service agent...
So we decided to get it back to where we were, (we were about 250 miles away from the service agent at that point in time, so drove all the way there and back with the boat).
So what do we do now... as we wanted our boat for our holiday!
This cable is not available in the UK at all, so took the mega plunge.. decided to fit a new throttle control and both throttle and shift cables so we could use it... a far more expensive option, but I suppose our old quadrant trim switch was becoming temperamental, although this wasn't just a straight swap.
The old one was OMC quadrant but the new one was a Volvo Penta one, with a far longer support arm, which meant a lot of cutting and fiddling but eventually 5 hours later we have a new quadrant and working boat!
I suppose a very expensive way about it, but it does look very nice!
I shall try to post some pictures tomorrow.
Regards,
Rob