Lipstick on a Pig?

[Fgroce]

We have had 3 Correct Crafts over the years, The latest is our 2002 Ski Nautique. People have to understand the more complicated and more bell and whistles they put on a boat the more there is to break. I work on with state of the art technology everyday, it all breaks Hope you are fixed up soon enjoy your boat.

[willyt]

Post number 3 - I've been around, maybe not here... but I'll call a troll out anywhere. Despite not owning a nautique I like this place...

[seachicken27]

Well I have owned em all. Nautiques that is. 1990 Sport, 1998 Super Sport, 1989 Ski, 2005 210, 1993 Barefoot, 2013 G23, 2014 210, and now a 2015 G21. I also have plenty of experience on other people's boats. Specifically my buddies' multiple Malibus and another friend's 2015 Centurion. All these new boats have problems. To me it's unacceptable, but then again I really like to wakeboard and I'm willing to pay to play or cuss when stuff breaks. I don't care what brand it is, there are so many different moving parts and electrical systems and technology on these boats today that when stuff does go wrong, it's not an easy fix like it was on my 1990 sport. I see things on my G21 and think wow this is really innovative and well-thought out, and then I spend 15 minutes trying to get my USB audio to work on my polk head unit and wonder how in 2015 you can mess that up? I have a bluetooth speaker from walmart I got for 18 dollars that is more reliable at connecting to my phone than that junk polk head unit. But dang it the wake is sick behind it and bluetooth connectivity is a first world problem. Wouldn't be so bad if it was third world pricing. So I empathize with the OP, and go on forever about stuff, but at the end of the day Nautiques are still at the top of the wake boat tier even with their random hit and miss flaws.

[XBIGPUN66]

I have had a moomba and two nautiqes. I have ridden just about every brand. I can say the nautique is the best quality built boat in the past and right now. With all of the technology with the newer boats there will be problems but I think the nautiques are the best out there. The engineering speaks for itself as far as the hull design and performance for boardsports. We use use and Bluetooth without a problem.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[sfjakey]

Have you reached out to Nautique? I mean write them a RESPECTFUL letter describing your issues and your situation. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the response from them and their willingness to help resolve this. Bitching here does nothing, and may have ruined any chance at a better solution already. I bought a new 1994 Ski Nautique with the throttle body fuel injection. Nothing but issues for 60 plus hours. After 2 months, Nautique gave me a new boat, no more questions. 2nd boat was good for about 150 hours, then started having the same issues. At about 200 hours, and after much abuse, Nautique offered to upgrade me AGAIN to another boat, this time a 1996 (in 1995) with the GT40 multiport motor for $2000. I had beat the crap of the 94 in saltwater and they still upgraded me. I put 2000 hours on that 96 without a hiccup. Bought a new 206 in 03, a new 211 in 07 and now have a 15 230. I will not consider any other manufacturer because of how they took care of me. Give them a chance to make it right, and they will.

[seachicken27]

While we are on the subject of ranting, I hate how PCM and Nautique are considered separate for warranty stuff. Tell me what you guys think of this. I purchased a used 2015 G21 from a member here. Super nice guy. Decided to do the deal through Nautiques of Orlando. Part of the deal was the dealer would register all the new warranties for me. Jeff at Nautiques of Orlando sends warranty stuff off. 2 weeks later, I get an email from him saying PCM has rejected the warranty transfer because the tech forgot to list the prop size and pitch and the fuel pressure on the warranty transfer checklist. The only solution after emailing him and calling PCM directly was for me to get my boat and take it to a Nautique dealer (closest one is 2 hours away now) so they could write that in. Oh and I only had 10 days left to do this (since date of sale was 20 days ago) and a vacation coming up. Needless to say it didn't happen and now I have no warranty on my 2015 engine. Not happy about that but I really don't blame Nautiques of Orlando; they were super nice about it and looking at the piece of paper I would have probably ignored it too. I think PCM could have handled it differently myself.

[lucky7t]

Well I have owned em all. Nautiques that is. 1990 Sport, 1998 Super Sport, 1989 Ski, 2005 210, 1993 Barefoot, 2013 G23, 2014 210, and now a 2015 G21. I also have plenty of experience on other people's boats. Specifically my buddies' multiple Malibus and another friend's 2015 Centurion. All these new boats have problems. To me it's unacceptable, but then again I really like to wakeboard and I'm willing to pay to play or cuss when stuff breaks. I don't care what brand it is, there are so many different moving parts and electrical systems and technology on these boats today that when stuff does go wrong, it's not an easy fix like it was on my 1990 sport. I see things on my G21 and think wow this is really innovative and well-thought out, and then I spend 15 minutes trying to get my USB audio to work on my polk head unit and wonder how in 2015 you can mess that up? I have a bluetooth speaker from walmart I got for 18 dollars that is more reliable at connecting to my phone than that junk polk head unit. But dang it the wake is sick behind it and bluetooth connectivity is a first world problem. Wouldn't be so bad if it was third world pricing. So I empathize with the OP, and go on forever about stuff, but at the end of the day Nautiques are still at the top of the wake boat tier even with their random hit and miss flaws.

Well said . On a side note I've owned many custom choppers that cost me 50-60k to build with worse problems . Kinda feel bad for even posting about my issues but really feel we Nautique owners need to know. This doesn't mean other manufacturers aren't experiencing the same issues

Sent from my iPhone using PLT Nautique

[surroundsound64]

When was the last time you saw these on a car? 25 year ago maybe? Here they are telling us: We are so sloppy manufacturing this thing that there might be debris inside your engine. Just to be safe, change the oil as soon as possible - no, even better, get the dealer do it for you for $300

Cars are factory broke in.

[MikeC]

My 2 cents - The boats today are getting more complicated because that's what the market wants. Nautique caters to an upscale market, as do most wake boat manufacturers, however there are boats out there that don't use the complicated and very expensive electronics, such as Moomba, but with that you also lose quality. The people that Nautique markets to are used to high tech gadgets and electronics and if they weren't on the leading edge (remember CC patented the wake tower and was the first to use ballast tanks to shape wakes - they want to be the leader, not a follower) many buyers would leave Nautique and move to other boats because of the "bling" factor.

The Vdrive issue the OP brought up could have been in any boat, it's not a Nautique manufactured part. It is a bummer that it took 4 weeks to fix, but it is a mechanical device and as such, it breaks every so often.

The manuals - yes the do suck...they are poorly written (if I see the word "just" one more time in my Linc Panoray manual I'll scream) and the PCM manual does look like it came off the copy machine. But as far as the number of manuals, every vehicle I own has a stack of manuals two inches thick.

The break in period - I went to a BMW manual (it shares many of the same market demographics) and guess what - 2016 BMW M2 page 152 - goes into great detail about how to properly break in the car, everything from the engine to the brakes. The initial oil change has always been the most important, anyone that thinks the engine in their new car doesn't have debris, metal shavings (small, microscopic - not like it's coming off a lathe) is sadly mistaken.

Quality - I personally think the quality coming off the line is less than in the past, not because of the design, but because of the amount of boats that are being built. My old boat had a completely black hull and you could look down the side and not see any imperfections, my new boat has black hull bottom and top with blue flake and I can see all kinds of imperfections as I look down the hull. It's not nearly as solid of a boat as my old one, however, at the same time it's far better than most other manufacturers boats.

Progress sucks sometimes, but fortunately for us we're not still riding horses and cooking over an open fire. My grandmother never cooked with a microwave, my son has never used a stove, so I guess how we view all of the electronics and automation we have on our new Nautiques depends on your perspective.

[Kenv]

The V-Drive recall he may be talking about was for "VDrive Oil level check/Vent operation. I still have mine sitting here on my desk. The paper....not the V-Drive....LOL. Edit...oh...and going back to one of the posts above....On my 2015 G21 the **** Bluetooth worked ONCE...when the shop guy showed me which button to push in the walkthrough. Ever since then..nada on that piece of crap Polk sheet in these boats. I just plug the USB cord in. Never can get the Bluetooth to stay connected on and for any period of time. After hearing the HORROR story about the 16's and up now....I'm afraid to jump to a G23 in 2020. (I'm on the 5 year plan) Have a Nauty summer everyone....in the Ferrari of wakeboats!!!!

[SkiTower]

Post number 3 - I've been around, maybe not here... but I'll call a troll out anywhere. Despite not owning a nautique I like this place...

No troll (been here 10 years and love Jeff's site) just very tired of where the world is going. I am an Engineer in a different industry and can look at how these things are put together in a different way. I have a 2007 211 that I bought new and won't be trading anytime soon because I don't like the new complexity. I have a 2014 F150 because my 2005 died at 206K and had too many of these complex things going wrong to make it worth fixing. Tired of complexity for the sake of complexity. My rant is at the world, not CC. In the industry, CV reigns supreme. I just see a LOT of opportunity to make a very robust boat within current pricing.

And for those that are bragging on the auto industry, I was screwed on the 2005 F150 having to change spark plugs at $500 a pop every 50K because of a design flaw. The brakes on my 2014 are a design flaw. All the testing and the auto industry can't get things right either. But they sure don't mind jacking up the price 50% in 10 years.

Sorry for the rant, just very burned out every time I turn around because everything has one issue or another...heat pump on the house, truck, etc.

And to the OP, CC and the dealer network are a huge part of why we buy these boats. They'll make it right.

[JoeA]

Assuming this post is legitimate I am sorry to hear about your troubles. I have had one problem in the past 242 hours on our 2015 G23 and it was an o2 sensor......thats it. Boats will always have problems as the environment they are operated and stored in are unpredictable. As an industry Nautique has a stellar reputation so switching brands is not the answer.

I wold definitely reach out to CC in a professional manner and work this to resolution. Can your dealer give you a loaner boat? This happens more often than you might think.

[scott-lake-james-in]

I work in the Auto industry and the markets are totally different. These boats are not comoddities like 99% of all vehicles we see on the road. A better comparison in my thinking is with the RV market.

[Cpan13]

I absolutely love the wake by G21 puts out but I'm not gonna lie, I'm kind of on board with this guy. My boat is 3 years old and well cared for, I'm on my 3rd linc screen, the ballast has never read correct levels, windshield is not properly aligned, front seat back pad is crooked, engine hatch is not level, and I'm starting to see more and more gel coat cracks here and there. Not exactly something you'd expect for $150k. I'm seriously contemplating buying an older XStar to sac out at this point because after my warranty runs out I don't want to pay for all of these electrical issues.

[wakerider107]

I agree with op. the manual is junk very unprofessional. and these things are built like they came from someones garage. Come on you can buy a cheap car and get a more consistent product, with a much higher initial quality with everything working. You pay $75k to $125k and get a boat with extra parts and crap sitting in the bottom of the bilge. Yeah, they can't invest in automation, but come on that is not a reasonable excuse for the kind of stuff they crank out. They charge for moving warranty from one person to another, and then limit it to only 2^nd owner. Or they only tighten 3 of 4 of the engine to boat mounts. Or the back hatch is crooked on a lot of them and they tell the owner that the owner let the engine get too hot and it warped it. Or the propeller falls off. Or the vinyl turns pink. Or no glue under the rub rail. Battery switches that the handles fall off. Or just put in a few screws rather than all of them securing windshield to hull. And then they bitch and complain about covering it quite often. And even on a known issue like the propellers falling off they only cover parts, not service. And many of the faria system they bought cap out so you the hour meters only go to 999. People put 100s of thousands of hours on cars and don't deal with break in oil. so quit saying it because boats are different.

Thank goodness people have so much disposable income that they - and me - over pay for a piece of fiberglass floating around on the water with a large gasoline engine for purely recreational purposes. Definitely 1^st world problems. But I agree that all of these boat manufactures need to be held to a much higher standard.

Most of the items you described make it sound like your dealership is not helping you like they should. I worked at a nautique dealership during the times of broken shaft and pink staining of the vinyl. All warranty, 100% covered besides getting the boat to the dealership. Nautique even reimbursed a handful of our customers for tow ins from when the shaft snapped. We worked for our customers and haggled with nautique to make sure the customer was treated right - so it sounds like your local dealership sucks and based on your location it looks like you have to deal with marine max so no surprise there.

Sorry for your troubles - I've had 3 nautiques and over 900 hours in 4 years with the only big issue was needing a replacement LINC 2.0 on my 2012. I've worked closely with every major brand, and in my experience, nautique has the highest quality. However, every brand has problems. If you take a magnifying glass to any boat, you will never be happy.