Boat Warranties - My experience

[dpb]

There was a thread some time ago discussing boat warranties, but if I remember correctly, none of the posters were writing from experience.
So I have recently gone through a claim on a warranty that came with my used boat when I purchased it from a dealer. It was a three month warranty that they hope will lead you to renew it. I did not renew it but a claim situation arose when it still had a couple of days to run.
This post isn't to be a blow by blow account of the details but is just to make folks aware of how they work.
The main points that I learnt were:
1) The warranty only kicks in if you have an actual breakdown, its in the words but the significance excaped me when I first read them. So if you have a part that is failing but has not actually failed, there is no cover. So when I look back over all the repairs that I have done over the last 30 years, only thee would have qualified. In this recent experience my mechanic, a mercruiser main dealer, identified one failed part and some others that hadn't yet but needed replacing. The warranty only covered the failed part.
2) My mechanic carried out the repair using mercruiser parts. The part that failed is no longer available on its own but comes only as part of a kit including parts that had not failed. The warranty provider took issue with this and would only pay for an equivelent part in this case by Sierra which was available as a separate item. Since the main dealer would not offer this as an option I had to cover the difference.
3) The warranty provider has a schedule of hours allowed for various jobs. If your mechanic takes longer for any reason they will stick to the schedule. In my case this became the significant issue as my mechanic was adamant that he should use method (a) whereas the loss adjuster was adamant that method (a) involved unecessary work and that method (b) would be quicker.
4) There is an excess and VAT is applied to the excess.
The claim was at least dealt with reasonably efficiently, with payment being made quickly once the amount was accepted. I got about 40% of my total repair bill back and probably about 50% if you only account for the parts that had actually failed.
So make of this what you will, if there had not been a warranty I would have likely done the job myself which would have probably cost me a little less than it actually did after the payout so I suppose the main benefit in this case was I didn't have to get my hands dirty! It was interesting to see how it played out, I think I would have been quite irate about it if I had paid for the warranty but as I hadn't I was able to be more philasophical about it.
Hope this info is useful..........

 

[Richard10002]

Sounds like many warranties and guarantees - generally not worth what you pay for them when you actually find out what you have bought. In the above example, even when free with your purchase, they can end up costing you more than if you didnt have one

 

[mlines]

I had the same issue with a car warranty. Alternator was failing (loud squealing noise), drove to the dealers and got it repaired but warranty would not pay out. Dealer said I should have broken down along the road and got them to recover me into the garage as that would have then qualified

However Land Rover had had a series of alternator failures so contributed to the repair even though out of main warranty.

 

[Tam Lin]

The engineer who fitted my new engine used to work for BL. He said that fixing things through warranty cost companies something like six times more than getting it right in the first place. No wonder BL is no more!

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

I had totally the opposite experience when buying my secondhand 6yr old Ferretti from San Lorenzo in Italy. They had taken the boat as a p/x against a new SL and were offering it with a 12 month warranty, as is required under Italian consumer law. The whole buying experience was a pleasure but I won't go into details on that but it was the warranty experience that really impressed me. Firstly they asked for a copy of my surveyor's report and they fixed every single item in that survey including those items which were only flagged as advisory such as an area of teak in the cockpit which the surveyor had identified would need attention in the future. When we took delivery of the boat SL just said every time you use the boat, send us a list of faults and we will fix them and they were as good as their word. One time we used the boat and I felt the service batteries were losing their charge quite quickly so I asked SL to check whether one or more batteries was defunct. They replaced all the batteries on the boat including the engine start batteries and I did not pay a thing. During the course of that 12 months we cruised around Corsica and Sardinia and whenever and wherever we had a problem, I called or emailed SL's service dept and they sent a local technician to fix it. Nothing seemed too much trouble. We had an aircon and sternthruster problem in Olbia and they sent somebody to fix it. They replaced the galley fridge when we were near Cagliari. They even sent a MAN technician to inspect the engines at the end of the warranty period to reassure me because I had expressed some concern over the cooling systems

So not all secondhand boat warranties are not worth the paper they are written on. My buying and warranty experience with San Lorenzo was first class and beyond my expectations. I would not hesitate to recommend buying a used boat from SL. The thing is I didn't even pay over the odds for the boat. It was very fairly priced against others on the market at the time

 

[BartW]

My buying and warranty experience with San Lorenzo was first class and beyond my expectations. I would not hesitate to recommend buying a used boat from SL.

mmmm I hear a future SL owner talking

nice to read this kind of experience on here,
usually (not alway's) people post rather about the opposite

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

mmmm I hear a future SL owner talking

nice to read this kind of experience on here,
usually (not alway's) people post rather about the opposite

Yup apart from the fact that SLs are built like brick outhouses which I like, I would certainly buy a used one from SL directly because of the service

 

[GrahamHR]

To be fair, the "new" but 5 year old old stock boat I bought in 2014 had problems with the Volvo EVC system and its mechanical components but the dealer paid to get it sorted out. A lost season and stress nevertheless.

 

[Tammany]

I think a lot depends on how much you spent in the first place. If you just shelled out 1/2million on your pride & joy then the dealer will go overboard on the service's side of things as he wants your future lucrative custom. If you spent £5000 on a fishing boat then it's gonna be bare minimum. Just like the car market, or most things you buy too be honest.

 

[dpb]

I think there is a difference between warranties that you buy provided by third parties, like mine was, and those provided by manufacturers, I would imagine you are better looked after with the later.