Broken Tower (2012 230)

[Zach@n3]

Must have been a while tube pulling sesh .

[shag]

I want to say that those towers were being made in China (of all places)... A seriously remember hearing someone at a dealer saying that is why their boat was delayed because they had to wait for the tower coming from overseas.... Crappy welds plus a little vibration = broken metal... My .02

[jsta281]

I first looked on my phone hard to see. Bottom pic is blury (or I'm blind) top pic as someone suggested shows nice clean edge in the tubing where it came loose, very poor weld, is as if they "missed." Clearly no penatration into the "top tube"

[swankster]

With no other dents or issues any where else, it is hard to say they were abusing or over loading the tower. My guess is a QC issue, which is disappointing. The good news is warranty should take care of it.

[Neverenough]

I agree with jsta281. You can tell the tubes were not welded very well. If the welds were good it would have been very jagged or torn looking.

[LakeRats]

Lack of damage and both sides broke, I would say side load on the tower, with poor quality weld.

[surroundsound64]

Only one clear cut answer, swamp logging!

Hahahahaha!

[Ziplock]

Here is what I was told yesterday. The company who builds the towers would grind down the welds and bondo over them so it would appear it was never welded.

[Fluid63]

I agree with super01 poor weld penetration, and yes some manufacturers will grind them back and compromise the structural integrity for image!

[rsess]

Can you tell me how fast nautique has dealt with the warranty situation. I was told they don't keep parts at factory for this fix. my dealer gave me the centre section off another new boat and waited months for a replacement for that boat

[Ziplock]

From what I know Buxton ordered the guy a new tower as soon as it broke. A complete tower is expected to show up this week witch would equal a down time of about 2 weeks. Wouldn't be to bad but the guy had waited over a month to take delivery, only to have it break the first time on the water.

[Montana Boat Guy]

The tower breaking at or near welds can be caused by several reasons.
1. Overloading, or improper distribution of weight on tower.
2. Loaded tower being ran in rough water
3. Weld penetration
4. Operator abuse/misuse

We have seen this break on a few towers now and have reviewed each case individually. In the case of insufficient penetration of welds we sent areplacement tower at no charge. However we have seen several cases were the tower was overloaded with accessories, typically tower speakers, causing an overload at the tubing and breaking them near the welds. As some of you may know welding causes extreme heat to the metal which weakens it so typically the area just outside of the weld is the weakest part of the structure. When the tower is used in a way outside of its design it can cause enough stress to break the tower around the weld. This to an untrained eye can look like a clean break at the weld when in fact it is a clean break just outside of the weld. We have seen and heard of boat owners who drive their boats through 30+ minutes of2-3+ swells to get to calm water with towers loaded to with aftermarket speakers, board racks loaded, Z5 cargo bimini loaded with boards, etc. This would be like asking you to drive your corvette down a washboard road for 30 minutes at 45 miles an hour with a roof rack holding a couple hundred pounds of whatever and not expecting any damage to occur. The recommended and tested weight distribution of accessories on a tower should be followed to help avoid any premature failure of the tower structure. Towers were also designed to pull one wakeboarder, surfer, skier, kneeboarder, etc it was not designed for tubing, towing another boat (yes we have seen this done), parasailer, etc. When reqired to run in rough water it is recommended to remove boards from rack to prevent damage to tower, board racks, and especially your boards! To confirm with a previous message yes the welds are ground down smooth as per Nautique request for a seamless look to the tower and we have built thousands of towers this way with only a few issues. At Roswell we proudly stand behind our product and if a tower has broken due to lack of good welding we typically replace the tower immediately once confirmed. Please feel free to contact me with any questions. tracy@roswellwakeair.com