Hey I just want to give a heads up to all you Baja owners with Latham Hydraulic Steering.

I'm having an issue and of course we have tried to solve it ourselves with no luck. So I did what I should have done first and called Latham. After explaining the problem the first comment the tech support fellow asked was "When did you last change your filter"?

After a few seconds of feeling pretty stupid I stated that "I did not know there was a filter".

He laughed and said that is always the answer they get!

Well there is a filter and they recommend that it be replaced after every 100 hours of service. It was $35.00 and I bought two because they will not accept credit cards and you must have a certified check when UPS arrives.

They are about 99.9995% sure this is my problem and I sure hope they are right.

When was the last time you replaced your filter?

What problem are you having? I think my filty is on the starboard side of the engine compartment but never paid much attention to it. 190 hours, never changed it.

Hard to turn and actually sticks at times.

It has been blead twice and we plan to bleed it again after we install the new filter. Unlike some brands the Latham system is "NOT" self bleeding and there is a specific proceedure that must be followed to bleed it.

The filter is in a blue aluminum housing on starboard side if you follow your lines from resevoir they go to it..I changed mine when I bought the boat and again this year. Pretty much every 2 yrs is my maintenance plan.

I was reading through the manuals on the new 30' the other day (yeah, I know, who does that??) and saw the one for the steering. Saw the part about the filter and added it to my maintenance plan. It said to do it every year. I'll probably just do it every 100. 2 filters a year for $70... no complaints. Maybe I'll pick up some the next time I am on the east coast over by them.

It just floors me that Latham doesn't take credit cards.