| BHutten |
04-21-2009 01:45 AM |
Any suggestions? Magic Cat motor blew up 1.5hrs after purchase!
Well, where do I begin? I have been waiting all 32 years of my life to purchase a new powerboat and finally decided to pull the trigger on a used 2002 28' Magic Cat. I live in Southern California and made my way to the Magic dealership (Power Marine) in Lake Havasu to test drive the boat. The dealer told me the engine was a 650HP Flat top that was originally built with the boat in 2002 and that it had 104 hours on it. Strangely though, they said that the boats top speed was 104mph and it most likely had a little more than the 650HP they were stating. It has a blower, whipple supercharger and is being pushed by a 32P prop. It started right up and ran perfectly during the demo ride. After about 30 minutes of driving and a quick tow back to the dealership, I headed back to So Cal to get my financing in order.
Two weeks later, on April 5, 2009, I headed back out to Havasu to take delivery of my new (used) Magic Cat. While walking into the dealership, my salesman made a statement that he was concerned that they might be closing their doors the following day. This made me begin to second guess my purchase but with an "As is" statement on my purchase agreement, I decided to go through with it. After paying for an engine and drive service at the tune of $835 and signing the purchase agreement, I was ready to hit the water. The owner of Magic himself drove my boat down from the factory to make the delivery. He asked me if I had any experience driving blower motors and I told him just some friends’ boats over the years, so he then proceeded to warn me of running it for too long..he said 15 seconds of blower and then back it off. With the quick few words of caution from the owner himself, we were then off for the river.
The sweet Cat ran perfectly for the first 1.4 hours up the river. We were cruising at about 4200 RPMs and around 70mph just north of the sandbar when all of a sudden ..BANG! It blew...! I lifted up the hatch and saw oil everywhere. It was smoking like crazy but fortunately no fire! After a 2 hour tow back to the Nautical launch ramp (and $508), my first day as a boat owner thankfully came to an end.
Now this you won't believe! The following day I returned to the dealership to see what they would do for me. I walked inside the office and was approached by one of the workers inside who told me that they were closed. Knowing that they were open 7 days a week, I was a bit confused. I told her that I had just purchased a boat from them the day prior and needed to talk to someone about it. She made a quick phone call and referred me to the factory up the street. As I was walking back to my boat, the owner came to a screeching halt next to my car, jumped out of his, and asked how he could help me. I proceeded to tell him that I had a rough first day with the boat and that I thought I blew a rod or two (two big holes on either side of the oil pan!). He quickly started yelling at me and accused me of running the boat too hard. As politely as possible and with all due respect, I told him that we were not running the boat too hard at all and that he was falsely accusing me of something I hadn't done. He continued to yell at me saying that we had a big problem on our hands. Holding my composure, I agreed with him and was awaiting some advice. He told me that the gentleman who had built my motor had his own engine business there in Havasu and that I needed to take the boat to him so we could determine the extent of the damage that ”I had done to the engine”! He raced off in the middle of our conversation, leaving me with my mouth on the floor. I then headed up to the factory to hopefully get some better customer service and I unfortunately ran into the owner again. He once again began yelling at me, saying that he did not want the boat, I wasn’t able to drop it there, and that I could call a lawyer if I wanted to. Still completely speechless at the way I was being disrespected by the owner of a multi-million dollar boat business, we left.
I towed the boat back to my mechanic in SoCal, seeing that I wasn’t getting anywhere with the dealership. I called my insurance company to file a claim, but knowing that they wouldn’t cover mechanical engine failure, I did not have my hopes up. My mechanic tore apart the engine and It turns out that multiple rods broke with one of the pistons snapping and destroying the block. The bottom end is basically trash. My mechanic gave me an estimate of over $23,000!!! Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do? I certainly don’t have 23K to drop on a rebuild! Considering legal action but not too sure I would get anywhere seeing that Magic has closed their doors!
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