great thread with alotta info, hopefully a resolve acn come to satisfy both parties and the integrity of Formula

[QUOTE=4mulafastech;3311093] I am still wondering if any gap is normal. Do you recall seeing any gaps with your 292?



I don't recall there being a gap and its shrink wrapped now so have to wait a few months.Will let you know.

The old 311 brochures say they used a product called Arogrip to bond the deck.

Plex vs 5200
 

Audiofn, I would reconsider the 5200. The Plex, when installed correctly, will not fail! It will rip the adjacent fiberglass apart to the mat! The problem as I see it was there was not enough in the joint and it was oversqueezed. Plex is a great product. There is specific requirements on squeez that were overlooked on my boat. The 5200 is a great product but it does not bite into the glass like Plex.

I agree with fossil fuel. 5200 is great stuff, but I think is is too pliable for this application. Also, I wouldn't hit the panic button because the rub rail screws are backing out. Mine did on my 311, but the deck wasn't loose.

It is my opinion that in a repair situation the 5200 is the way to go. The problem is that to replace the old Plexus or I guess in my case aerogrip you have to get all the old stuff out and super clean. This can be done a number of ways but not easily. Plexus is make to bond new parts together not old ones. I have tried to remove things that are held together with 5200 and ussually it rips the fiberglass apart in the process. Makes me think that you are getting a very similiar bond strength as the Plexus.

The problem with your math is that Fastech's are not the only Formula's that use plexus. Every one of their boats with a deck to hull joint uses it. Going back to 2001, thats thousands of boats with that bond.

But the Fastech's are the only ones that have the potential to be run hard.

With all due respect, am I missing somthing here?

You stated that you found this problem in 2003 when the boat was 2 years old, but you didn't call Formula then, you had some marina "fix" it for $2100. In 2003, the hull was still under a Formula warranty, and for what you paid for the boat, I'd have been calling Formula then. ASAP

Fast forward 7 years to 2010, and it seems you have an other problem, however, there is no repair invoice/estimate posted, so I'm not really sure if I'm correct on this. Now, when the boat is 9 years old, you contact Formula, and send them an invoice from 2003 and want to know what they are going to do for you. As your boat had a 5 year warranty on it, its now 4 YEARS out of warranty. Formula offers you $1250, more than 1/2 of what you spent to fix it 7 years ago, and you are not happy with that, yet you state that you are not looking for anything from Formula? It appears that you have turned down the $1250 they offered that they didn't have to offer.

I'm trying to figure out what you want here? several boats that are claimed to have this issue out of the thousands that Formula has built with Plexus (They started using it in 97 or 98). Did any of these people contact Formula about this?

Very few if any Companies that I know of would give anything to repaid something that is 4 years out of warranty. Yet Formula is offering to give you $1250 and you said thats not enough? How much do you think GM or Ford would give you for a repair on a car that was 4 years out of warranty?

Really? What kind of stress do you think a 40' x 11' 16,000 pound 400 SS with 525's running 60mph puts on that joint?

A lot less as that boat won't see any air if it hits a wave.Also there is a big difference between 60 and 80.

You are trying to split hairs here. Both boats have huge decks, and more feet of joint than I can even guess at. You have a 16000 lb 400 SS, and a 10000 lb 382. Neither is a lightweight, and both are going to do a lot of stressing of that joint. Even if the decks are the same length, the 400's is 3 FEET wider. Thats about 40% wider than the 382.

we run our 292 very hard and have yet to see a problem..knock on wood. its a 2003.

I talked to Formula today at the boat show,and while they say they have never seen it happen if it did its driver error....I told them that if the fiberglass broke I would agree but if its the glued joint I would not.One thing I did find out is the hull warranty is 10 years not 5 as stated earlier in this thread so depending on date the 382 in question was put in service it may still be under warranty.If so it should be towed to Formula and let them deal with it.

The guys at the show were telling you what Formula's hull warranty is on todays boats. They were 5 year hull warranties through 2004. In 2005 they went to 10 years. This is stated in the 1st letter from Formula in this thread, and I just went through my 2001 Fastech catalog from Formula which says the same thing.

Actually they said the 10 year started in 1998,but if your brochure says different that is probably correct.

Mine go back to 1995 when I bought my first one. The 2004 (and prior) one shows 5 years for everything. The 2005 shows 10 for structure and 5 for mechanical.

If its 10 for a 2001, then this 382 is right on the line depending on when it was bought. I would think that the letter from Formula on the 1st page of this thread would have said it was still in warranty, but it said it was not.

Driver Error?
 

That's an interesting response. Lets see. Throttle down, steer,mmmm. 5 boats, same club, all broken seams, same issues. Yes Driver error I'm sure thats it! It surprised us all that Formula did not seem to take this seriously, mine is the newest at a 05. I was reimbursed at a "percentage" of the repair. I never read in the hull warrenty that there was a owner share in structural failures. In this day of safety first I would think a problem as serious as this would be spearheaded by the factory instead of posted by a owner as a courtesy to fellow 382 families. These deck joints were not properly fitted from the factory in our opinion. In my case the plex was not applied in enough quantity and oversqueezed according to the installation info from Plexus. I hope Nort was helpful in passing this info on to perhaps prevent a tragic failure in the future.

I'm sure someone at Formula knew some boats had these issues, and they implemented a manufacturing change, or perhaps just did them more carefully. When you double the length of your hull warranty, it usually is done for a reason.

It would be interesting to check the hull numbers of boats that have this problem, and see if they are in close proximity, indicating a period of time, or even a specific build team.

I don’t know if there is any correlation here, but the brochures say the weight of the 353 was 8575 through 05, 9100 in 06, and 9500 from 07 on. Also, I have an old boat test of a 03 where the top speed was 85 with 525’s. The latest boat test of the 353 clocks in at 80 with the same power. Maybe they did beef things up when they extended the warranty.

Not to even imply anything, but 5 boats from the same club, all with the same claimed issue??? I'd like to know what the odds of that are.

Formula has built a ton of boats, and these are the only 5 that I have ever seen or read an issue about with the hull/deck bond?

We here at Pantera have always taken pride on our workmanship to the point of giving "lifetime Warranty" to all of our original Pantera owners whether they race it or not.

After nearly 30 years of building our line of custom made boats all I can say is that we have always stood behind our product whether a customer has purchased a Pantera boat through us or from another customer.


We put a full hand laid race lamination on each boat and each boat is rigged and built as if it was a race boat.If a customer has a warranty problem we will take care of it here at the factory.All I can say is that we have hardly had any warranty work on our glass work in the last 30 years.


I encourage our customers to go out and beat the hell out of their boats, and if there is a problem we will be here for them. Dont take my word for it ask any Pantera customer.


If anyone has any questions or concerns about our line of boats they can call me here at Pantera Boats or on my cell.


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Found this looking for something else. I was at the Pantera factory in November.Pepe gave me the grand tour if I ever buy another new boat it will be from them.

The 382 that is being talked about is listed at 10,450 from the first Fastech in 1997 through the current 2011.

i have scoured the internet on this topic and come up with nothing...

i beleive the 10 yr warranty did start in '98. We have a 2003 and is still covered until 2013 on the hull. The factory warranty sticker is still on the windshield.

No problem Z5. Yes, in 2003 I had a problem, but I didn’t think it was a defect. I thought maybe it was something I did to my boat myself somehow, so I tried to have the problem fixed locally. If Formula had any support out here on the west coast I might have talked to them. When they did have support out here (Dick Simon Marine)......I had all warranty work done by them (even the AC unit that was put in with wood screws).

I have the bill for the new glue and screw job. I haven't submitted it to Formula yet. I have some more to this story to post. I think the rest of the dialog was via email.

So.....you ask what I want. I want just what I said in the beginning. This thread is intended to shed some light to a possible safety issue with the hull/deck bonding. The reason that 5 boats in our club have this problem is because we are a close club and we somehow managed to share the information. The shop fixing this problem locally is also part of our club (Archer Marine).

If their manufacturing process is as consistent as they claim, then I believe that most ALL of the boats have this problem. This is probably explains why Formula is trying to deflect the issue back to the owner as "user error". This could be a huge problem for them.

Honestly when I wrote my original letter, I thought I had a 10 year warranty. I just looked at my old Formula hard cover brochure from 2001......it says 5 Year. See below.

The plexus material isn't the problem.....it's Formula's application of the product.

Not sure what you are saying here.......can you clarify?

This is where my question comes in. Formula was building near 1000 boats a year for quite a while, and they all used plexus starting in 1997. Without knowing their exact production, we are surly talking about at least 5000 boats, and maybe a lot more. I don't know how many different people do their plexus work, but I'd guess that they have certain standards so they were all done the same way, so I'd think that there would have been a lot of issues with that many boats.

Thats the same book I pulled out as soon as I read your post, along with older and newer versions looking to see what they said the warranty was. Its where I came up with the dates of 5 year and then the switch to 10. I see one poster whos boat fits in the 5 year group, but his boat has a sticker that says 10, so who knows. The Formula guys at the boat show even seemed to have it different than the books show.

I understood that was what you meant. I was just making the statement that they used plexus on all their boats, so if they use the same application, that they all would have an issue.

I was just stating that it was an interesting situation, that with all the thousands of boats that Formula has built with Plexus that the only ones that I have ever read about any issues with were these 5 all from the same area. I've owned 3 different Formula's since 1995, so I have paid attention to friends with them, and to the Company. Its why I have all the brochures. I have never heard anyone say anything about build issues with them.

I was not implying anything, (which I'm sure it looked like). Just trying to figure out why there haven't been any other failures reported.

I think the answer that that question is simple maybe? They use the hell out of their boats out there. Year around boating in real offshore conditions. They are running hard trying to keep up with Cigs, Fountains, OL and so on.

As Plexus says and testing has demonstrated......if applied properly, the Plexus will pull apart the fiberglass. That is not what is happening.

Z5.......my assumption is that others have had this problem too (two folks have PMd me about their boats having the same problem......one being a 382 and the other is a 353) but people (till now) haven't brought this problem out in public. I can't exactly say why people don't want this out in public, but my guess is probably similar to yours.......they don't want to hurt the value of the boat or the brand. I see this as a safety issue and to me THAT is more important.

Every brand will have it's issues, some worse then others. Most of the newer Formula's in the lake I boat on stay at the docks and rarely go out. When they do they are in a lake and hardly subjected to what the ocean or great lakes can dish out. For Formula to say this is owner abuse or what ever the phrase I think is a cop out. How are we to run an "offshore" boat. If the Glass did not rip apart around the plexus bond then they have a lamination schedualling issue. Knowing Nort for the time that I have I am sure he would be extatic if Formula would send out a bulliten to dealers and owners just to check and keep an eye on that area of the boat. Maybe they can offer to have that looked at by dealers? Clearly this is not a one time issue, and I am willing to bet that the guys that run their boats hard are the ones that are having it show up.

I agree with this 100%. As loyal as Formula has usualy been to its owners, I would not have expected this answer from them. Not on a Fastech, nor any other boat in their line. If you stuff it, sure, but running it "normally" in the ocean, absolutly not. They have never marketed their boats as "lake" boats, but as the best.

Yes, I've never heard anything bad about Plexus, except that it had to be put on perfectly.

If others are saying it, in private, to protect value, or whatever, I guess I can understand that. But thats not helping the issue. The big problem may be, that the only way to correctly fix the problems that may be out there, is to remove the deck and do it over. I'm sure I don't want to know what that costs. and I'm sure that at this point in time, Formula can't afford to do it, even if they wanted to.

Even in a "stuff" the fiberglass around the plexus should fail first.If the fiberglass is fine and the Plexus separated then it was done improperly.

I was calling a stuff "operator error", not even talking about plexus.

382
 

I personally have walked up to 3 382's on launch ramps. One at Havasu and two in Florida and talked to the owners personally. After carefully remarking about the issues asked if I could check their boat. 2 out of 3 were loose. I think most owners look at the issue as a rub rail screws loose-minor. They do not realize the seam may be breaking the screws. I will be very surprised if now that this is public that when the rest of the country thaws out we will hear from more owners.

BTW formulas comments about operator error is really BS. 4 of the five owners are SCOPE board members and past presidents of the club. I am the least qualified with 35 years of OCEAN powerboat exp. Although it did not take long to learn NOT to run at speed with one tab at 2 and the other at
8 !!

I was VERY VERY VERY disappointed that a leader in the industry would stoop that low to pass the buck.

One of the boats was leaking when running into weather. This is how the owner found the issue. The water was entering the cabin through the seam......How many 382 owners have mysterious water leaks??????

"Operator Error" oops I missed the seam with the Plexus
 

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.............(not my boat)

Your test showed that the rub rail was loose???