deboatmon

I have a 12,000 lb Polylift for my boat that has a very tiny leak in a welded seam. I can see the bubbles just barely and ever so slightly. The mechanicals for the lift are very good and strong. All aspects of the lift have been great. But, it's developed a tiny leak that requires someone at the marina to stop by every few days and pump one side up. Obviously that's not OK.

My question is, does anyone know of a bonding agent that might adhere to the pontoon, or anyone have any experience they might like to share with a similar problem. Polylift is happy to repair it free of charge if I'll send them the pontoon. That's not really practical for me and neither is paying them to travel to East Tennessee to weld it onsite. Polylift has been pleasant and receptive to communicate with but are unable to suggest any bonding agents that might solve the problem.

If you have any experience with this your suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

revvrun

no real experience with a polylift, but I am in the body shop business and we use a product call difuser that is used to repair bumpers even metal panels. It can be bought at a body shop supply store. If you where in Johnson City Tennessee I would let you use my gun and product to give it a try. No guarantee but it is defiantely worth a try, compared to pulling lift out. I keep a boat at concord on a lift, but brought it to Johnson City for the winter but will not be back until May. If you have not done anything by then I will bring some difuser with me and you can give it a try. Good Luck.

revvrun

It should have been fuser not difuser, this is what happens when I get my secretary to type it.

Knot 4 Me

Did you buy the lift new? If so the tanks have a lifetime warranty and they should come to you and re-weld the seam. Otherwise their warranty is useless. My 6K Poly is 12 years old and about 3 years ago developed a very small leak at the welded seam on the tank end just as you describe. I was going to attempt to seal it with 3M 5200 but after a couple months it stopped leaking on its own. I guess the alge plugged it back up. Hasn't leaked again.

deboatmon

Knot 4 Me, yes, I did buy the lift new and had it installed by Poly Lift. Their warranty is that you return defective item to them or pay travel expenses to you. They are not totally unreasonable, but it does render the lifetime warranty somewhat worthless. On that I will certainly agree.

As a manufacturer they clearly and fully understand what's involved in shipping a 25ft pontoon to them. It is no small matter to disassemble the lift and remove a pontoon and then have it shipped to them. It would probably take them 5 minutes to repair once they're here but they quoted me close to $3000.00 to get here to "do it for free under warranty".

When I bought my lift there was a Poly Lift dealer in the area but he's long gone now. The dealer was Rick Lawson, Monterey, TN.

You nailed the problem directly on the center of the head. Yes, the lifetime warranty, certainly from a buyers perspective, is, essentially worthless.That is, unless you live on The Lake of the Ozarks.

The good thing is that I'll figure a way to stop the leak without shipping a pontoon to Poly Lift or paying them to come here. And that's exactly why my post here.

deboatmon

I did forget to add that with the leak and related extra usage of one pump I now have one pump motor out. I swapped hoses so the leaking pontoon could be pumped up this weekend and have ordered an other vacuum motor from AMETEK model 116472-00 for $118.00.

Break Out Another Thousand

ChargeIt

Might try two part marine stick epoxy you knead and apply? It will work even under water.
Clean the surface with a wire brush then abrasive pad to remove maximum funk.

Repaired our old pontoon logs several times this way. The logs had gotten too rusty to weld so we just kept a tube handy

Knot 4 Me

Mark at Poly basically pi$$ed away a lot of sales with his attitude over the last several years. That is a joke he wants $3K to honor his warranty. We steer all referrals now to Gino at Summerset (Galva-Lift). http://www.summersetboatlifts.com/

When I called Mark to tell him about my leak he told me to apply heat around the leak and soften the weld and try to reseal it. Uh, and what happens when I weaken the entire weld and make the leak bigger?!

Mentalpause

I'm on LOTO and purchased 2 Poly lifts over a 10 year period. Never had a problem with either as far as materials. But the service and attitude of Mark is horrible. So now I have Galva lifts. Service from Gino is outstanding during and after the sale.

I believe the service at Poly was better years ago when Mark's dad ran the business. But not anymore. At this point I doubt I will ever do business with Poly again.

deboatmon

It was never my intention that this post unload on Poly Lift, as I did and still do believe they make a great lift. But, the truth is not always pleasant. Poly Lift has opportunities to make things a little better and easier to accept if they choose to go down that road. The truth is that their guarantee clearly states the terms of the warranty they provide. But, I do believe the intentions of the statement "lifetime warranty" are, at the very least, misleading to imply that they will repair it free for life to the original owner. There's nothing free about it. To build upon the statement of a lifetime warranty while knowing full well what it takes to actually effect that warranty could be considered as misleading. What would be really nice is if they, Poly Lift, like many other manufacturers have already done, accept that sometimes things happen and they could offer to help with advice, connections to others in the area they might know that could help, or something positive in general.

As I said, I will find a way to fix this very small leak and will likely do so without the help of Poly Lift. That is, unless Poly Lift wants to chime in on this forum and offer some good advice or suggestions for their product to a very valuable and good customer base.