04 san

[Jholly87]

Hey guys wanting your opinion. I'm looking at an 04 san limited one owner boat. It has higher hours (just shy of 900) everything seems to be in good condition and working order. Has perfect pass and auto rear ballast. I can get it for around 23. I most likely will only have it for a season or two before I would upgrade. guess my question is is this a decent deal that I won't lose to much money on and also it comes with single axle galvanized trailer. Thanks for your opinions!

Edit* sorry I thought I was in General discussion when I posted this. Please move me. Thanks!

[jondavis08]

Seems like a pretty good deal. I just sold my 2003 Super Sport for High $20's. No ballast but did have a new prefect pass and upgraded prop. Boat was in great condition and had close to 700 hours on it.

900 hours is nothing to shy away from. My only concern is when you decide to sell it may be harder if you top the 1K mark. Sounds silly but a boat with 1001 hours seems a lot worse then a boat with 994 hours. All perception..

[Jholly87]

Seems like a pretty good deal. I just sold my 2003 Super Sport for High $20's. No ballast but did have a new prefect pass and upgraded prop. Boat was in great condition and had close to 700 hours on it.

900 hours is nothing to shy away from. My only concern is when you decide to sell it may be harder if you top the 1K mark. Sounds silly but a boat with 1001 hours seems a lot worse then a boat with 994 hours. All perception..

Thanks for the input. Over 1000 hours makes sense kinda like the 100k mile mark with cars.

[EXTREMEFUN1300]

By no means am I an expert, but I did do a serious amount of research and comparison for months last summer before I pulled the trigger on my 2003 SAN Team Ed w/585hrs. $23k is a VERY fair price IF it's in excellent condition and you were going to keep the boat, and you don't have to put anything into it.
Expecting to sell it with over 1k hrs and turn a profit of any significance, I probably wouldn't anticipate more than break even if you sell it in prime season. But, breaking even in these times, on one of these boats, having as much fun as you WILL have on it...priceless

[Jholly87]

By no means am I an expert, but I did do a serious amount of research and comparison for months last summer before I pulled the trigger on my 2003 SAN Team Ed w/585hrs. $23k is a VERY fair price IF it's in excellent condition and you were going to keep the boat, and you don't have to put anything into it.
Expecting to sell it with over 1k hrs and turn a profit of any significance, I probably wouldn't anticipate more than break even if you sell it in prime season. But, breaking even in these times, on one of these boats, having as much fun as you WILL have on it...priceless

Thanks for the advice! I don't care much about making money just don't want to lose more than a thousand or two if I only have it for a season or so.

[DW SD]

A few thoughts:
If you average 30mph driving in a car 1000 hours is equal to ONLY 30k miles. This is nothing if maintained. Look at a boat's hours in the same light. Fuel injected engines should last a few hundred thousand miles at least properly maintained.

This would relate to many thousands of hours. If you poke around you will find many boat owners with thousands of hours on theirs.
The mindset that an engine is done @ 1000 hours is very old school. Even then a crate motor long block isn't expensive. (Less than $5k) These are not exotic engines.


Sent from my iPhone using PLT Nautique

[Jholly87]

Thanks for the input guys I've already put money down and going to pick her up next weekend if everything checks out!

[Gwozhog]

I would find a boat with under 500 hours and sell it when you hit 900. There are plenty of them out there. Just last month an 04 with 385 hours on here sold for 23k. Trying to sell a boat with over a 1000 hours is not easy unless you sell it dirt cheap.

[DW SD]

I would find a boat with under 500 hours and sell it when you hit 900. There are plenty of them out there. Just last month an 04 with 385 hours on here sold for 23k. Trying to sell a boat with over a 1000 hours is not easy unless you sell it dirt cheap.

I will definitely use this advice when I BUY my next boat. I'll look for something with over 1000 hours! And just make sure it is well cared for.

There are boats with only dozens of hours that can be destroyed by naive / negligent or ( downright stupid ) owners. Low hours to me means it was left on the trailer for too long. No use is actually hard on things, too, even if garage kept. Machines are meant to be used to keep lubricated.

Last year when looking to buy my boat, I talked to a guy who stored his 2002 SAN outside, uncovered in Arizona for 1/2 dozen years (of its 14 year life). It had 250 hours. He couldn't sell it for $15k. The gelcoat and interior were destroyed.

I bought my Toyota Land Cruiser with almost 90k miles on it 10 years ago. It now has about 242k miles and runs perfect (yes, I've been diligent about maintaining it). Burns no oil, etc. Most likely it had around 3000 hours when I bought it and now somewhere around 8000. I'm confident, it would run to 500k miles without major repairs and beyond if I chose to own it that long.

Hope I don't appear argumentative. Just trying to adjust mentalities a bit. OR at the least, I'll profit from those mentalities as a buyer of my next boat.

Good luke to Jholly87 on his purchase!! I bet you'll be very happy with your new boat!

Doug

[t.franscioni]

Totally agree with DW SD above.... I'm a big believer in this statement. Low hours to the point of it just sitting for long periods is often more problematic than a regularly used engine. If you have a low hour boat with an owner that knows how to properly store an engine for long periods of unuse or at least runs it on the garden hose once a month and brings it up to operating temp then that's a different story (most people though don't take those kinds of preventive maintenance steps). As far as engines go, a very low hour boat for its age is not necessarily anymore "reliable" than a high hour boat. It's hard to look past hours because we want to think the engine is closer to being completely worn out but truth is there is probably only a handful of die hard slalom guys that have ever ran there boat so much and so long that the engine died because it literally worn out. Age is more of a factor in reliability than hours in my opinion.

Certian components will tend to have an hourly life limit that will be reached by most boat owners. Distributor caps, plug wires, electric fuel
pumps. But these sorts of things are fairly easily fixed. I'm referring to the internal mechanical components of the engine when I speak of "reliability".

[Jholly87]

Sent from my SM-G930V using PLT Nautique mobile app

[Jholly87]

Sent from my SM-G930V using PLT Nautique mobile app

[Jholly87]

Well I did end purchasing that 04. Here are a couple pictures. Awhile back I came across a very detailed ballast upgrade for these but for the life of me I cant find it now found some others but none that I like as well. A link would be appricated if anyone knows what I'm talking about.

[DW SD]

Did you check wakemakers.com ??
nice boat!

[Jholly87]

Did you check wakemakers.com ??
nice boat!

Yeah I did. I have all or most of my fat sacs already. I Just want a very clean install on johnson pumps, vents, wiring, plumbing, switches, ect.

Sent from my SM-G930V using PLT Nautique mobile app