2020 G23 Won't start -- Mostly

[Sauce]

Hi folks,

I'm having a hard time getting my new (to me) G23 to start. I've only tried to start it up on 3 different occasions, and all times it has been finicky.

First time (Monday) was when I took it to get it disinfected. Battery set to on, start linc, start a second time (blue lights are on, little whirring sounds in the background), start a third time -> nothing. I played with it for 15 minutes and eventually it decided to start -- and started right up. I drove it away from the disinfection station, pulled over, spoke to the dealer I got it from, and with him on the phone hit the start button and sure enough it fired right up.

Second time was later that day (Monday). I put the boat in the water and kept playing with it for about 10-15 minutes before it decided to start up. Since it was in the water I never turned it off out of fear that it wouldn't start in the middle of the lake and I'd get stuck.

Third time was today (Friday). I plugged in the trickle charger for 4-5 hours (there's a ProSport12 on the boat). Switched the battery to combine, and then same thing. Start, ok, get warning and vent fan work fine. Start a second time, ok, hear whirring sounds, 2 blue LEDs on. Start a third time, then nothing. Played with it a few times, jiggled the throttle, don't know what I did, and then it fired up. Stopped it right away (it's out of the water). Fired up right away. Stopped it, Fired up third time. Great. Stopped playing with it for a few minutes, tried again, and nothing. One time I heard it crank for maybe 1/4 second and then stop.

When I hit the second start, I always hear a whirring sound. If I take out the safety lanyard, I hear a relay click, and when I put it back on, another relay click, so I think that's working. But when I press and hold start, I don't hear anything.

Any ideas what I can look at? Linc shows battery voltage around 12.7/12.8, it dances around there up and down a tiny bit.

Sauce

[jmo]

Could be the Throttle base assembly failing as this is the behavior you will see. The electronics inside the assembly prevents you from starting the boat with the throttle in gear/engaged. These units had a design flaw and would eventually fail causing erratic no start conditions.

if you press start once and you hear whirring (that’s the low pressure fuel pump priming) but there’s no crank when press start again - this is most likely what is happening. If you giggle the throttle a little bit while trying to start, that will help starting it for a period of time.

if your safety lanyard was the issue - it would crank over but not start as the safety lanyard kills power to the fuel pump.

livosi redesigned the assembly at some point, but I don’t know as of what year the boats got the revised assembly from the factory. Mine was a 2018 and it went bad years later.

[Scooter G]

Agreed with jmo, you are describing the classic symptoms.
There are few good threads around here that will help you out.
https://www.planetnautique.com/vb5/f...s-210-230-2015

[Rednucleus]

If a recent purchase, hope your dealer will make it right for you

[Sauce]

If a recent purchase, hope your dealer will make it right for you

Yeah, me too, but they're 1500 miles away

[Sauce]

Could be the Throttle base assembly failing as this is the behavior you will see. The electronics inside the assembly prevents you from starting the boat with the throttle in gear/engaged. These units had a design flaw and would eventually fail causing erratic no start conditions.

I suspect this too. I'll follow the link that Scooter G provided. I'm hoping there are some diagnostics I can do before ordering parts and pulling everything out. There has to be a way to hook up a probe to the switch downstream and see it never engaging. Probably a way to fake neutral too to isolate it to that issue and ensure the boat starts.

I don't suppose LINC has a neutral indicator on the display, does it? that would tell you right away!

[jmo]

Alas there is no way I know of to confirm it’s the culprit without removing it. It’s possible to bypass it and confirm the engine starts, but I’ve never done that. To expose the wiring harness for it you have to pull the side panel off anyways. It’s an hour of time to swap in a new Throttle Base Assembly if your handy - I am very confident that is what’s happening.

My hope is you bought it from a Nautique dealer - given you just bought it I assume they gave you some type of warranty? It’s a $700.00 part, I would request the dealer send you the part for free and swap it in yourself if you can, if that doesn’t fix it you can send it back to them, they will need anyways for someone else hitting this.

i had my old one rebuilt by Livorsi so I had a spare, but I literally sold it yesterday to another Nautique owner whose out of warranty and needs the replacement.

any Nautique dealer worth their salt should know about this issue by now. I know of dealers around me who just proactively swapped it out for customers where they do the annual maintenance and winterization.

[Sauce]

Alas there is no way I know of to confirm it’s the culprit without removing it. It’s possible to bypass it and confirm the engine starts, but I’ve never done that. To expose the wiring harness for it you have to pull the side panel off anyways. It’s an hour of time to swap in a new Throttle Base Assembly if your handy - I am very confident that is what’s happening.

My hope is you bought it from a Nautique dealer - given you just bought it I assume they gave you some type of warranty? It’s a $700.00 part, I would request the dealer send you the part for free and swap it in yourself if you can, if that doesn’t fix it you can send it back to them, they will need anyways for someone else hitting this.

I'm placing my order right now with Nautique Parts. Since the dealer is very far away (1500 miles), I might see if they'd compensate me for it rather than fix it. In any case, how does one bypass it? If I'm opening the trim, I'm opening the trim. I can leave it open until the part comes, but in the meantime I can confirm it's the issue. Everyone seems pretty convinced, so I may as well start taking things apart now.

[jmo]

As I said - I never did it, but one recommendation a friend had while I was troubleshooting was to jump the starter, essentially simulating a start signal from keypad.

side notes:

1. even if replacing the TBA doesn’t solve your issue, you want to replace it anyways as it will eventually fail.

2. check your oil level to see if it’s is high from fuel dilution from all of the lugging and false starts, assuming you have the 6.2 or 5.3 liter direct injection engines.

[bturner]

Don't throw the old one away (like I did), have it rebuilt and keep it as a spare. Livorsi will rebuild them and I think jpwhit on this forum may be able rebuild them as well, if he's offering that service.