Service costs in Georgia

[Red_Duck]

If you’re not able to winterize or do routine servicing yourself, it’s worth noting before you buy a Nautique that the sole Nautique dealer in Georgia (Buford) charges $800 to winterize a G23 and $1500 for 100 hour service. I guess with the cost of the boats these days they assume owners have more money than sense.

[jkallen21]

I realize this is not a convenient location for you, but Young Harris water sports in Young Harris Georgia is a dealer and they are much cheaper. I’ve also used non-nautique dealers for winterizing as it’s not tough.

[MN Ryan]

It runs about $850-$1000 to winterize up here. I use our local Mastercraft dealer as they are slightly cheaper and much nicer to work with.

[snotdoc]

I did my winterization this year in my '22 G23 which is stupid simple however.... I struggled a little with the ballast tanks eventually used fake lake to get the antifreeze in there, manual shows using the vents but unfortunately there's a one way ball valve that prevents dumping antifreeze in that way. next year I'll probably just disconnect the hoses and pour it in as a I burned up an impeller using the fake lake on one of them.

[vision]

I never put anti freeze in my ballast tanks (bags) in any of my Gs or previous X-stars.

I just run the tanks till they're empty, then run them on Fill for about 15 secs to make sure there is air in the pump housing. Never had a problem.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[snotdoc]

Quote removed by Admin for not following the Guidelines for Quoting Previous Posts in a Thread.

good to know, its a PIA with that ball valve. Generally we don't get too cold but did have -17 last year for several days!

[Red_Duck]

I realize this is not a convenient location for you, but Young Harris water sports in Young Harris Georgia is a dealer and they are much cheaper. I’ve also used non-nautique dealers for winterizing as it’s not tough.

thank you for the tip. I’m in Gainesville GA so it’s not as inconvenient as it seems. I wanted to go to a Nautique dealer but that’s not going to be possible. By the way, if anyone reading this is a tech who does work themselves on a G23 (or the like) in North Georgia then please post here. I don’t need anything right now but I am sure I will. Good luck.

[Red_Duck]

It runs about $850-$1000 to winterize up here. I use our local Mastercraft dealer as they are slightly cheaper and much nicer to work with.

wow. It’s no consolation that others may have it even worse. I feel for you. I’m going to do it myself.

[MN Ryan]

Yeah, it's a little more critical in MN, but they sure soak us for it. I need to find a local "mentor" to give me the confidence to do it myself.

[bturner]

$800 - $1000+ depending on the boat is pretty much in line with what they charge up here to do it right as well. I know the price sounds incredible but all one need do is look at the inflation rate and costs to keep quality help and the price ends up falling in line. Sorry but this is just a fact of life with the ways things are today. This again assumes the price is for complete winterization service and it's important to understand what you're getting for the service being provided when comparing costs.

I've done 3 boats so far this year with another one to go. The first 3 of these have been Wake boats so the costs have been similar. I did my personal boat first and let me tell you I had sticker shock when I bought the materials. I swear everything was at least 20% higher and some items where nearly 30%. Marine antifreeze was at the top of the list. I buy the -100 marine engine specific stuff. Last year I paid $12/gallon, this year it was $18 which was a deal. West marine wanted $20 and I would have to drive 20 miles each way to get it in a Tahoe so add another $7 for 2 gallons of gas just to get it. This about what I paid for my boat with the other 2 coming in pretty close.....

Antifreeze cooling system - ~$80
Antifreeze ballast (3 gallons@ $4/gallons) - ~$12
Stabile Marine 360 - ~$10
Oil/Filter - ~$35
Trans fluid - ~$20
Gas Filters - ~$80
Impeller - $50
Misc. materials an disposal of fluids - $10

All in materials cost - ~$300 my cost with shopping this all around. So that would be $300 my cost without the mark up a dealer is going to do for their parts. 2 years ago I probably would have had a lot closer to $220. Then there's labor. Now I'm older and don't jump in and out of the boat like I used to and a dealer is going to have this down to a science but I'd say I have about 4 hours into each of these boats getting them done to a level I'm happy and confident in. Shop time has gone through the roof. I'm seeing rates locally anywhere between $150 to north of $175. So in my example using the lower rate there's $600 in labor alone. All in I'm seeing about ~$900 to do this right.

With me doing this you can get rid of the labor rate but add in a sixer of Miller Lite of Bud. Then breakfast or dinner depending on when we do it so we can subtract the ~$550 in labor and call it ~$50 to get me to show up. So even with me doing all the work and giving up an evening or weekend morning or afternoon you're still talking about ~$320.

I've always said there are 3 things that drive a guy to pay for something..... Cost, ability to do the work and time. Any one of those 3 can drive you to pay for that service. Make it 2 of those items and the likelihood of hiring it out goes up exponentially. I always love it when I see a doctor or lawyer complain about paying a plumber, electrician or mechanic for a service then have no problem billing a client considerably more for an hour of their service.

I would fully agree with the OP that anyone seeing someone buying a boat for north of $150K would expect them to be able to afford the care/feeding of that toy. Always reminds me of the story of the guy that asks the Ferrari dealer the MPG on one of their cars to which the salesmen responds that if they're worried about the MPG they can't afford the car. The only way I personally have been able to stay in this hobby is by doing 95% of the work/maintenance myself. Sorry but I don't see this maintenance cost trend reversing anytime soon. If anything I predict the cost to go up and quickly. I believe we're about to see the chickens come home to roost for all the "give aways" and we'll see more people leaving the hobby over costs such as this. In short the boating cycle is about to start once again.

.

[Scooter G]

Good thread, great input. I agree with Turner on the do it yourself, and it's probably about the money, but more than that, I want to know how to do it, and I want it done right. We live a little rural, not that Amazon doesn't go anywhere and everywhere, but if I need an item (filters, oil, etc) and think there is a chance that I will need a replacement down the road, I will purchase 3 or 4 for the shelf. Good for a few years on maintenance service parts for the boat, and maybe got lucky this spring with pricing when I purchased a plethora of annual service items. Price may go up, probably not go down, but I also worry about the availability and short supply. What do you mean we can’t get Diesel DEF for the truck, I guess I’ll have to bust open one of the 10 cartons in my reserve, lol.
On a side note, speaking of prices, and I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but come about August this year, one of our local lakes had very little traffic on it, we owned it to ourselves. I think a lot of it was contributed to gas prices. Everyone got their credit card statements (gas bill) from July and said we're done! I about did the same when the statement rolled in at the end of August for over $1200 for fuel between rigs and toys, sheesh. Pick a hobby, they're all expensive to one degree or another...

Pic of our private lake (or so it seemed) on a Saturday in August:

[GMLIII]

bturner Great write up. I will add the sole reason I do not do my owe winterization even though I could, is that I would rather put this risk on the dealer since they have winterization insurance should something go wrong in the winterization process. Putting the risk on someone else other than myself outweighs the dollars saved for me.

[Red_Duck]

Thanks members for a civilized thread. Appreciate it.

[jkallen21]

For comparison, I just dropped my 60 SANTE off at Young Harris and it was $395 to winterize - including ballasts.

[MN Ryan]

Really? I wonder what differs. If I remember, I will go through my invoice and we can compare procedures and costs.