Need opinions on direction to take

[west coast slayer]

Looking at buying a 2008 ski nautique 196 with 775 hours. They had a bad valve at 500 hours and was repaired by PCM. They had compression and service done at 700 hours, my question is would you be afraid to purchase this boat because of the history or would it be a go ahead. The party selling the boat has taken excellent care of it, only used on private lake. Price is $26000.00 with tandem trailer. Is 775 a lot or too many hours? Thanks in advance. By the way the owner said the compression was good and he is willing to have it verified before I purchase just to make sure.

[east tx skier]

Hours show higher than typical use, but maintenance is key. Plenty of time (tons of time) left on that motor before it will need to be rebuilt if maintenance is up to snuff. With its history, if it makes you feel better, get a marine survey done on it. Probably not more than a couple of hundred bucks and worth the piece of mind. A compression test is fine if you know what to look for.

The poor man's version of this is a long test drive with some time spent at various rpms and wide open throttle. If it performs to spec at wide open throttle, that's not a bad sign. Long test drives with lots of long breaks to allow for some good heat sink and some idling in between is not a bad way to make a boat that has problems show them to you. This served me well with my last boat and I just went along for a test drive on a 99 SNOB today and put this testing back into use. Found a couple of non deal breakers as a result.