Need some advice.

[Jtmex]

Hello everyone,

I need a little advice on buying a boat. I have owned boats (bass boats, i/o's) for the past 20 years but, I am new to inboards particularly Nautique's. I have been searching for the past two months for a boat my family and I can use to ski,tube, and learn how to wake board behind. I am looking to spend up $25,000 and just need some advice on what to look for. I have found a boat here locally but, I'm just not sure if it is a good deal or should I keep looking. I have a deposit down on it to hold it until I figure out if this is the "one". I will attach a link here for you guys to look at and tell me what you think. http://www.prowakewatersports.com/pr...R0&veh=2896019.

Thank you ahead of time for any advise or help you can throw my way. Jose

[scott resick]

I will say this, Since you posted the ad, you better jump on it before someone on here sees it! Looks like a good deal but I didnt see any hrs listed. Also, if your thinking "family boat" you may want to consider a V drive wich would give you alot more room if you have kiddies running around in it. Sweet looking boat though.

[Jtmex]

Thank you for the reply. The boat has 430 hrs on it. I have been thinking about a V drive over a Direct drive for that reason of room. But I think the Direct Drive is a whole lot easier to work on! How do they differ in ride, handling, and wake? I just need to do more research I guess...

[scott resick]

I think the V drives would give a much better wake for surfing, skating Etc. But you could add some ballast to that DD and have plenty of wake to play around on. With 5-6 peeps and 400lbs of balast on the floor of my 196 I get a surfable wake. Surfable mind you. There are alot of people on here with alot more knowledge than me about the dd VS Vd wake.

[Quinner]

25 is a decent price, not a great deal by any means. That model year is notorious for bad gauges, I cannot tell if those are original or replacements, they are definitely the type known to fail. If the gauges have been replaced the hours shown may not be accurate. Does it have a GT-40, Excalibur or other motor?? GM's may hold the hours, Fords will not.

DD is going to handle much better then a Vee and be far easier to service. Either one will give you about the same floor area, just shaped differently.

Overall that will be a very good all around boat, pulling skiers or just cruising will all be good, when pulling from the tower you can (carefully) have passengers in the back seat also. Driving an inboard will be different, they handle better moving forward but will take a little getting used to backing up / docking, they also sit low in the water and it can be easy to bury the bow if you have people up there and idle over large waves.

Boat does look clean in the pics, was it a 1 owner boat, any other info??

[jbach]

for that price you can pretty easily get a 95 through 2003 supersport/super air (v drive). the difficulty in maintenance is a non-issue between the v drive and direct. unless you are a pretty serious slalom skier, there is no reason to opt a direct drive over V. far less room, ballast all over the floor that you will have to step over, no layout deck, less storage, less people, did i mention less room? you'd regret not going vdrive if you could examine the two side by side.

[NCH2oSki]

Thats a good all around family boat, and the motor is in the right place! There is more room in a DD, but its arranged differently. Plenty of wakeboarding can be done with little or no wake enhancements. If you like to ski, you wont like the vee drives.

Quinner is spot on with the gauges.

[Jtmex]

Thanks for all the help. Those are still the original gauges. I made sere of that. It is a GT 40 motor the 25th anniversary edition. The ballast are not in the open they are underneath. This is a one owner boat as well. I got the dealer down to $24 so all in all not a bad deal?

[Paxdad]

For what it is worth I just purchased an 08 SANTE 210 and love it. I like you moved away from a 23' bow rider once my boys became obsessed with wakeboarding, etc. and they quickly told me to get with the Nautique program. Well needless to say I had a friend that was selling his 210 and having been it numerous times before knew that not only did the boys like it my wife liked it as well. Way better than my other boat. The seating in either boat is great and I often times have 4-7 in the 210 and it offers plenty of space, but you do need to be creative with storage, etc. I have some plastic totes that I put in the rear compartments that keep items dry etc. as well as totes for wet stuff like vest and wetsuits. I am fairly anal about wet stuff in the boat and make people use an Absorber towel before entering from the water as this keep most if not all the water out of the boat. I have the 343 engine and I cannot believer how efficient on fuel it is, as the last thing I wanted was to not be able to run the boat 3-4 times a week during the summer. I am not sure how the 230 is on fuel but I know a friend of mine with a new G23 is always commenting about how much the G uses with the 550 motor. I don't think you can go wrong on either boat.

[Quinner]

the difficulty in maintenance is a non-issue between the v drive and direct. unless you are a pretty serious slalom skier, there is no reason to opt a direct drive over V. far less room, ballast all over the floor that you will have to step over, no layout deck, less storage, less people, did i mention less room? you'd regret not going vdrive if you could examine the two side by side.

No offense JB but you are totally wrong on these points other then a Vee will have a larger sun deck.

Re: Ballast, OP said to "learn how to wakeboard" why would you even suggest he use any ballast? Good idea, destroy the whole lake with giant wakes to learn how to go in a straight line, really?? Let me guess, you probably "surf" also, lol

[xrichard]

I've had DD Sport Nautique, then an X-Star (v-drive), then my current 2008 SAN 210 (v-drive). My primary use is wakeboarding and secondary is family outings on the lake. IMHO, the DD layout doesn't come close to a v-drive for these uses. Ballast is easier to hide, storage (especially on older boats) is much better, the layout is more social because the engine box isn't in the middle of the sitting area, the rear sun pad is great for relaxing while the kids swim.

I can't imagine choosing a DD over a vdrive unless slalom in the cards. You mentioned you want to ski...but it also sounds like family outings are important and you want to learn to wakeboard. I'd suggest you decide what you want to optimize: if skiing is very important, then vdrives are less optimal. If the layout for socializing and family time and/or wakeboarding is very important, then DDs are less optimal. (There are some crossover v-drives that try to put out a decent slalom wake...but a DD is still likely to be better.)

WRT maintenance difficulty, I do my own work and can say the differences have been a non-issue with Nautique mainly because the engine isn't squeezed into a small area. All the normal maintenance items take no more time (plugs, cap, rotor, belt, impeller, oil, tranny fluid alignment). Some brands squeeze the engine in and they can be difficult. For major work, especially involving pulling the motor or tranny, I'd much rather have a DD.

I don't know the market for Air Nautiques, but from what I've seen you're near a price point that would buy similar Super Air. I've bought a few used boats and I've found I'm much better off paying a fair price for a pride-of-ownership/great-condition boat than looking for a deal that saves me a couple of thousand dollars up front (I've done both). You can make a purchase sooner because they're easier to find...which means getting on the water and enjoying your purchase. And you can limit your search to well maintained boats while eliminating those that need X, Y, and Z replaced immediately to get them in shape. I've also found I'm better off getting a boat that is optimal for my primary use(s) and not compromise or buy a boat that is "ok" for the primary use but is excellent for the use that is 3rd or 4th in line.

[pe4me]

I think the biases are naturally surfacing here, difficult to avoid. I would have to ditto X's sentiments on most points. I had a prostar 205 that I loved to drive as it totally handled like a ferrari in the fun factor dept, you could just take it on a cruise because it was fun to drive no watersports needed necessarily. With some weight it served my crew with 0 complaints for wakeboarding. Rarely skied, surfing was not mainstream for us anyway.
That was when I had no kids, now I am married and have 3 kids. I have no time in my 2006 210, however I have spent many hours in a X10 and even though I hated the driving/handling characteristics, it was like driving a giant tub, it ONLY did not ski like the 205. Everything else was head and shoulders above the DD if it was wake or room related.
This is TOTALLY an opinion. You just dont have dudes unloading their v-drives to get into DD's...unless in the rare case of a hardcore skier or like me, highly regarded the fun factor in drivability of a DD.
If I was single, home for more than just 8 weeks, I would have seriously considered my dream build. 206/PS 205 with a custom rear split bench moved forward, sacked out under them with a quickly removable rear design that would allow for a slammed out 210/old xstar wake platform and skinny nimble ski platform. My thought was buy a $12-15k DD, build/upholster rear mod, ballast addition and have the best of both worlds at half the cost. In reality, buy a boat that could be sacked out well beyond my (crews) ability to ride and pocket the 15k or whatever it turns out to be.
These are the fun compromises in life, hopefully you make the right choice as only you can quantify space, growth in the sport(s) resale, maintenance (how much are you ACTUALLY going to do, is it a moot point?) and all the rest of the sleepless/endless searches for answers in the mean time.
When I did the pros/cons list, what did it for me was space. You can spin the floor space however you wish, my experience was like being in a 2000 square foot open style ranch versus a 2000 sqft 2 story...the living space just "feels" bigger even though it may measure the same.
While this may read like I am justifying a v-drive purchase, I truly think it is a win win. To a guy looking for a DD, that deal could be viewed as great if it comes from a reputable dealer who will give you the good guy rates if something happens, or a couple grand high to a guy searching for value across the net/states. I feel good about paying a fair price(there were cheaper out there) from an unbiased dealer who represented the boat in a honest forthright fashion (my belief anyway).
It appears to me you have a chance at getting your feet wet with a solid one-owner DD from a local dealer. This is more difficult than most might think. Unless you crawl around in a Vdrive and get a gut feeling about what you are reading hear and elsewhere...you might want to follow through on your deposit. In most decisions, your first instinct is correct.
Either way good luck and enjoy the process-

[jguanciale]

Have a 2002 SN with the same GT-40 Anniversary Edition motor. 120 hours when purchased 3 years ago. Digital gauges still working (fingers crossed) and factory installed Flight tower. Paid $19K (White Lake Marine). The boat you are looking at appears to be in great condition. Just seems a little pricy to me. I would think somewhere in the $20k range would be more appropriate.

[jbach]

No offense JB but you are totally wrong on these points other then a Vee will have a larger sun deck.

Re: Ballast, OP said to "learn how to wakeboard" why would you even suggest he use any ballast? Good idea, destroy the whole lake with giant wakes to learn how to go in a straight line, really?? Let me guess, you probably "surf" also, lol

what exactly is rocket science about servicing a v-drive? if you don't think the layout of a v-drive boat is FAR roomier, has a better use of space and more comfortable for the same or more number of people, it really shows your ignorance. and yes, after we're beat from a day of wakeboarding, we surf. i didn't get the memo that surfing was stupid. since we ride on river systems that we may see two boats fishing the entire day, your reference to surfing not being a watersport, or destroying water is a moot point, at best.

"learning to wakeboard" takes 3 minutes, i could teach a monkey to do it. shortly after 3 minutes, some people may now want to progress to go wake to wake, and yes, that may take some ballast. i've been riding for 15 years and i'm still "learning to wakeboard", whatever that means.

[jsta281]

Here are some pretty universally accepted facts:
v drives are more popular and are more comfortable.

DD handle better

V drives will throw a bigger wake

DD will have a small wake.

V drives surf better.

DD ski better.

I think just about everything else is preference and choices between good better and best. You can wakeboard behind a DD. and in my opinion, unless you are throwing some pretty big airs can do so behind a DD quite nicely. A good wake boarder can do some pretty cool tricks behind a DD. in fact I would dare say that 90 percent of all wake boarders out there will not be able to do 1/2 the tricks the pros were doing when "wakeboard boats" were still DD. A bad, decent, or average wakeboarder, is not going to get behind a v drive and all of the sudden be able to to awesome tricks because the wake is better.

You can ski behind any v drive. The smaller/shorter ones are recreationally ok. If you are bad decent or average behind a v drive you will not become a comp level skier behind a DD.

1. If comfort is #1 factor v drive
2. If driving characteristics is #1 factor DD
3. if surfing is #1 factor v drive
4. If skiing is number one factor DD
5. if wake-boarding is #1 factor v drive UNLESS the skill level of your crew is such that you are not going to be throwing huge air tricks and either 2 or 4 rank high in importance if so then DD.

With all that said I think you will love that boat.