Money Pit

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Samurai_Dave

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23 Sep 2011
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Evening All,

Back in September last year I bought something similar to a Shetland 535 for £1000. I've since bought a 50hp yamaha outboard for £900, an 8hp yamaha for £250, all the materials to replace the deck and cupboards. I've just had to spend £300 having the trailer overauled and £700 having work done on the engine. After all this it STILL doesnt actually run! The boatyard assured me the would run but recomended cleaning out the carbs so they were pretty slopey shouldered about it.

Can someone send a sniper round and put me out of my misery!
 
Hara Kiri? :D

There is a larger Shetland (Family Four) in the yard I'm in. Guy bought it ten years ago and it's been on the hard rotting away for the last 9 years. He's up to date with his mooring fees :eek:
 
You should have asked the boat yard for a quote and insisted that you see the engine running after the repair :D

Boats are BIG Business for boat yards and they look for every angle to charge. ALWAYS GET A QUOTE :D
 
Hi
Welcome to the club (money pit that is).
In some ways you have paid for a valuable lesson-that many tradesmen, boatyards, people etc will rip you off not always through being dishonest but sometimes because they do not know what they are doing.
the answer is to learn about these things yourself, after all who wants to be in a boat that does not work for some reason without a clue how to fix it.
Carburetor cleaning is pretty simple just take it apart and make careful notes or photos so you can re-assemble it. Usually there is lots or sticky residue at the bottom of the jets or in the float chamber if an engine has not been used for a while which is easily removed.
If your boatyard was paid to do some other repair such as bottom end service or gear problem then the starting issue is not something that you had paid to be fixed however most diligent businesses would have wanted the engin to run to check out their repair!
Get your hands dirty and get stuck in and good luck with it.
 
Catalac is right.My Yamaha 60 kept stopping . Repeated efforts of the 'specialists'were useless. Eventually I took the carb to bits ,washed it in petrol and squirted carb cleaner in all the holes . It took 5 hours . Now it goes perfectly.
 
Samurai_Dave said:
Evening All,

Back in September last year I bought something similar to a Shetland 535 for £1000. I've since bought a 50hp yamaha outboard for £900, an 8hp yamaha for £250, all the materials to replace the deck and cupboards. I've just had to spend £300 having the trailer overauled and £700 having work done on the engine. After all this it STILL doesnt actually run! The boatyard assured me the would run but recomended cleaning out the carbs so they were pretty slopey shouldered about it.

Can someone send a sniper round and put me out of my misery!
Click to expand...

It has to be said that unless one can afford to spend a fortune, for the small boat owner, the only options are to do it all yourself, or be very good at buying pints in the marina bar. :)
 
I saw the engine working when I bought it so I can only assume it picked up rubbish from the fuel tank.

I've built a cupboard to mount the steering and switches onto and to house the battery. The boatyard took the battery out and moved it back under the transom seat so they coud fit "a genuine yamaha power cable" just like the one I'd taken off and it was on the boat when they were working on it. They have charged me to undo what I wanted and replaced a part I already had. I'm annoyed because they didn't think to ask where I wanted the battery, they just did what was convenient for them.

Wont be recomending that yard to anyone. They know their engineering but customer service didn't come into the equation.
 
Break out another thousand! So far with boats, bar a fibre glass repair , i reckon i could have done most jobs far better myself, much better than the 30-50 quid an hour guys did, it bugs the hell out of me when people who really dont have a clue try and screw me out of hard earned cash for doing sloppy work!

So far with boats i can only think of one company ive used who did a great job at a decent price,most do a bad job at an astronomical price, please correct me if you know differently!
 
They have replaceed the engines wiring loom which they blamed as the problem. I knew th eoil level sender was faulty and they had a second had one that would fit. At least that was good news. They have got the rigging sorted, turns out the pull/push engine vs throttle arrangement didn't agree with each other. I sent them the part numbers to swap the throttle over, instead they spent three hours making the part!

I'm about to write a rather stroppy letter expressing my displeasure.
 
I don't keep a tally of how much I spend on my boat, but the bits I do remember are £3k for a new gearbox, prop, shaft seal and associated parts. £3.5k on having the engine rebuilt. £300 recently on having some gas work done. On top of this there is always something needing doing that costs a couple of hundred. In 7 years of ownership I have spent more than the purchase price on repairs.

Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be that uncommon.
 
Samurai_Dave said:
They have replaceed the engines wiring loom which they blamed as the problem. I knew th eoil level sender was faulty and they had a second had one that would fit. At least that was good news. They have got the rigging sorted, turns out the pull/push engine vs throttle arrangement didn't agree with each other. I sent them the part numbers to swap the throttle over, instead they spent three hours making the part!

I'm about to write a rather stroppy letter expressing my displeasure.
Click to expand...

The thing I've learned about yards and general repairs is that most of the time they have as much a clue as you do about the problem (unless they are specialists in a particular field).

By using them you are paying them by the hour to half think about it and do something on your behalf. If you already know the answer and already know what needs to be done why pay some random guys who just aren't as interested in it as you are to make a hash of it?

Save your cash, take a week off work as holidays or pull a sicky and get the job done properly yourself for a third of the cost and half the time. You learn all about your boat and will motor with confidence knowing how to fix things should things go wrong.

I wouldn't bother writing a letter I'd take direct action.

Stop using them!

Man up to the task at hand, skill up and DIY.
 
Most individuals expect the same level of professionalism as they experience in their work life. Sadly, that is rarely the case (unless you work in the marine industry :-)
 
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