Cons Of Buying Used; For A Newbie

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

I wonder... does it average in the time at stop lights? or exclude it?

It averages it, anytime the car is in "Ready" mode. Anybody who has ever owned one has woken up the next morning goes into the garage to discover they have left the car "on" all night, too easy to do on a car that when you get out, the engine isn't running.
Quite a few people camp in the things, set the AC for a comfortable temp let the back seat lay flat, windows up, lock the doors, fan on low and go to sleep, AC runs off of battery and will start engine as necessary to recharge battery, and shutdown once charged of course. Once the temp drops at night you may go all night with the engine running once, you notice a really low average speed upon awakening.

[TrentePieds]

Start with a reality check: What was the cost in terms of the number of months' income that some benighted soul paid for a "brand new" boat, off the shelf, in, say, 1976 - i.e. forty years ago? What is the listing price (in terms of the number of months' income FOR YOU) of that very same boat, same hull number'n'all, lying alongside at a broker's today?

So who is the greater fool? He who boys "outta the show room", or he who buys "new to him"?

Just the new gear - including completely new standing rigging and roller furling - that the previous owner had put in TrentePieds in the three years prior to her coming to us, cost four times the number of dollars we paid for her. Why did he walk away from that "investment"? Because boats are NEVER an investment. They are a consumption good. Never pay more for a boat than you can walk away from without blinking an eye!

Think about the little things: Paper charts (which we Canadians are required to carry REGARDLESS of having chart scanners and other mod cons) are thirty buxapiece. There were 27 of them in the rack when we went aboard. Taxes in, that's about a kilobuck! Lemme tell you, that represents a SIGNIFICANT portion of what we paid for the boat, even tho she is still quite young. She was built in 1983. :-)

Last summer we did three cruises of about 300NM each, call it a thousand NM all in for the season. At 5 knots that is 200 hours under way. That is like five ordinary 40-hour work weeks. TrentePieds is a motor-sailer, so most of it was under power. The engine is a 25 HP Mitsubishi derivative. That machine was widely used in small industrial equipment like excavators and grounds keeping equipment. Parts are widely available for that reason. Used parts, including short blocks, are all over e-bay. A brand new replacement Beta - a superior engine in many, many respects - is $6K still "in the box", and about a week's labour of my own to re'n're. So why get all fretful about engine hours?

I've no idea how many hours were on the beast when she came to us. By the sound, feel and general deportment of her, she's got a lotta life left. Be scrupulous about keeping oil and fuel clean and uncontaminated, and about changing filters, change your glow plugs at the beginning of each season, make sure your engine related electical systems are in tip-top condition, keep an eye on your exhaust smoke and on your cooling water temperature for anything out of the ordinary, and you'll have no problems.

As for the hull itself, unless some clown has been punching holes in 'er where he shouldn't have, with ordinary attention to nicks and dings, she will last nearly forever. Remember that wooden hulls are on life-support from the day they are born. If you take them off life-support, they die in two years. Frozen snot hulls, on the other hand, have to be ASSASSINATED :-)

All the best :-)!

TrentePieds

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

It averages it, anytime the car is in "Ready" mode. Anybody who has ever owned one has woken up the next morning goes into the garage to discover they have left the car "on" all night, too easy to do on a car that when you get out, the engine isn't running.
Quite a few people camp in the things, set the AC for a comfortable temp let the back seat lay flat, windows up, lock the doors, fan on low and go to sleep, AC runs off of battery and will start engine as necessary to recharge battery, and shutdown once charged of course. Once the temp drops at night you may go all night with the engine running once, you notice a really low average speed upon awakening.

Yeah , I've rented a couple. Really disconcerting at the first stop light... you think your engine died!

[Tingum]

Mikeling, you would get better advice if your would be more specific. Is your "cruiser" power or sail, what type of engine, ect?

[Stu Jackson]

If you can narrow down the type of boat you are looking for, most "reputable" boats have owners associations of some kind on the internet. This could be an owners association website, or a Yahoo or Google Group.

Do your research right there and ask away. Those skippers will have already found out all of the fix-its and have found and written the solutions so you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

New vs. old may have little to do with power or sail. I have a sailboat. I have never bought new. We got a 1981 22 footer in 1983 from a family who loved their boat but found after a season or two it was too small. In 1987 we got a 1981 25 footer from a family that was growing and moving up. In 1998 we bought a 1986 34 footer from a family who was getting older and moving to a powerboat (trawler). When we were looking for the 34 footer, we just couldn't justify the "twice the price for new" since the one we found was in pristine shape with all sorts of add-ons that even the new boats didn't have.

We have never been sorry. Our current boat is 30 years old, we've had her for 18 years (PO had her 12 years) and she's in great shape. I'm a DIY-er. I enjoy the work almost as much as working on it, but the work is just regular maintenance which MUST be done, or else...

Again, I agree, there is now one right answer. You have to do your own research and homework.

Good luck.

[valhalla360]

After 2-3yrs, maintenance is more important that age. A 20yr old boat that has been maintained is easily the financially better deal compared to a new boat and it's not even in the ball park with a 5yr old boat that's been abused.


I would expect 3000-4000hrs out of a regularly used well maintained engine (gas, diesel, inboard, outboard, doesn't really matter with modern engines). The days when bulky overbuilt diesels were the only engines that lasted a long time are long gone (new diesel engines tend to be much smaller high rpm models). Consider your average car engine is good for 250,000miles assuming 60mph, that's 4000hrs. As others have said, lack of use or poor maintenance is more likely to kill the engine than a lot of hours.

[jkindredpdx]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

I wonder... does it average in the time at stop lights? or exclude it?

The engine stops at the stop light, so I guess you'd say it is excluded, but you are not moving and not consuming... so it is kindof averaged in.

[zeehag]

here is my take on this subject.
oit matters not whether itis a sail or powered boat, NOTHINGis ready to sail right out of the box. new and used require work before departure, and it is probably more pricey to repair the power boat than sailboat, for which i am an exampole .
ha ha ha h a
pricing of repairs is unique to each and every boat and cannot be generalized, as many naysayers spew from behind their desks and envy.i have owned and operated 2 twin engined antique 35 and 38 ft power driven vessels and over 10 (25 ft plus) sail powered ones, plus my dinghies which have been power boats, and my sailboats, all of which had engines, except my kite,since 1990, .... donot fool selves, ragbaggers, you, too are a power driven craft.
the dollars invested in your choice are worth it.
restoring an older craft is rewarding, as you chose the boat for its looks and handling. you have a passion for the boat the rest do not have. there is reason for that passion--you like the boat.
therefore it is worthy of your investment of money and sweat. have fun and enjoy the boat.
as long as you feel the investment is worthy, you will d o well. once you begin to doubt that, SELL and RUN, but, until that day, enjoy the boat. ....

btw---you can expect a lot more than 3000-4000 hours out of a marine engine, if you treat it well. 3000-4000 hours is essentially only 3-4 000 miles. get real with the guesstimates. be there, do that then spew how long an engine will last.
i put over 6000 hours on a worn out old tractor engine and have rebuilt that to run another 100,000 hours, with good maintenance and running practices.
my antique power boats were chris crafts with 283´s in one and 427´s in other--yes gas. fast and gas, FUN!!! with twin engine maneuverability.
awesome fun.
those engines had high hours (over 10,000 each) when i was done with em, and next owners had no issues with them for more than 2000 hours, last i heard they were still functioning smokelessly and efficiently. sounded damngood too. .

[Jim Cate]

i put over 6000 hours on a worn out old tractor engine and have rebuilt that to run another 100,000 hours, with good maintenance and running practices.

Awww, come on, Zee... your Mexican rebuild is likely pretty good, but 100,000 hours? Get real, lady!

Jim

[HappyMdRSailor]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Awww, come on, Zee... your Mexican rebuild is likely pretty good, but 100,000 hours? Get real, lady!

Jim

Jim,

Multiply by conversion factor of 1.61, and you'll see that it gets really good at 161,000 kilohours...

[zeehag]

jim, ka lunk wont be running good until it has a good oil leak, mebbe about 30k hours.....

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by jkindredpdx

The engine stops at the stop light, so I guess you'd say it is excluded, but you are not moving and not consuming... so it is kindof averaged in.

No, as long as the car is in the "ready" mode, speed is being averaged, Ready mode is just that, engine is ready, but may or may not be running and car may or may not be moving, actually the engine is off anytime load is below a threshold, but it will be spinning if vehicle speed is above 42 MPH, this is due to the RPM limit of the #2 motor / generator, #1 MG will spin the ICE (internal combustion engine), but it will be consuming zero fuel, below 42 MPH if load demand is below the threshold and the traction batteries SOC is acceptable, ICE won't even be turning and yet, your speed can be constant or even accelerating.

If you hook up a tachometer on the engine, you'll notice in city driving about half the time, the engine won't even be turning, one of the most difficult problems is keeping the engine at operating temp since it is off so much, that's solved by circulating coolant around the Catalytic converter to pick up it's heat.
Interior heat is primarily from engine coolant, but there are two electic heaters as well, during cold temperatures the engine is often run just to provide interior heat, you'll notice lower than average milage in cold weather operation.
Only way to determine if the engine is being spun by #1 MG, but consuming no fuel is to either monitor voltage or pulse to fuel injectors or by monitoring if the oxygen sensor system is open or closed loop.


If you like Engineering and or "gadgets", this thing is fascinating, there are I believe 5 different stages of operation for example, where it' operating logic changes.


Sorry for the drift

[Lepke]

Diesel engines last much longer than gas engines. Diesels don't have ignition problems and rarely have fuel problems. Gas engines in a marine environment are a PIA - in my experience. Most diesel engines are made to be overhauled many times. An engine with a turbo doesn't last as long as an engine without a turbo because of the higher temperatures for the pistons, rings, sleeves and valves. So for longer life engine, look for a medium or heavy duty diesel. It's better to have a larger engine w/o a turbo than a small engine with a turbo. Basically turbos allow a builder to put more horsepower in a smaller area.
Turbo engines run hard go about 2-3000 hours between overhaul. Non turbo engines with proper maintenance can go 10,000 hours.
Maintenance records are only as good as the maintainer and his honesty.
I've been working on or rebuilding engines since the mid 1960s and don't have a clue what 'resin in the engine' is.

[Lizzy Belle]

Originally Posted by mikeling

I heard that so long as you don't get anything older and 2005, resin in older engines, you should be ok. Pass a survey and have maintenance records is another must.

Where did you hear 'no older then 2015' and why would there ever be resin in an engine? I think that may be a typo, but I can't work out what it's supposed to say.

If the topic drift hasn't put you off and you're still reading here, maybe you can explain what you meant by that?

[mikeling]

Originally Posted by Lizzy Belle

Where did you hear 'no older then 2005' and why would there ever be resin in an engine? I think that may be a typo, but I can't work out what it's supposed to say.

If the topic drift hasn't put you off and you're still reading here, maybe you can explain what you meant by that?

Yes, still looking for a Cruiser. Just returned from spring break.

Like the title says ..... Newbie. I've been talking to a colleague who has had many years of boating on an outboard; he had mentioned the resin and 2005. From reading the responses, looks like that doesn't hold much water.

Thanks for all the input, very informative.

So if you were looking for a used boat, what year would you not want to go under. How old before things other than the engine start giving you trouble ? Is this where you might want to pay more for a name brand like Regal ?

Speaking of brands, where on the curve does Chaparral, Cruisers Yachts, Monterrey, Rinker and Larson go ? Bayliner being at the bottom of the curve. Is the curve same for Cruisers as it is for other types of boats ?

Should I stay way from any Dorals since they are no longer in business ? i.e. parts difficult to replace ?

Since I am looking at using a cruiser for long range ( up to 60 miles ) and over nite trips; I have made a generator a key requirement. I am assuming that I can't always count on a free spot on a marina. Some used boats do not have a generator but has the bay for one. I was told it may cost about $12,000 to put one in. Does that sound right ? It is much cheaper if it says the boat is pre wired for a generator ?

Since exploring is the primary motive for boating, is Diesel is must ?

so much for questions .... told you I am a newbie.