Skat,you must be on Smith Lake as i am.If so,I know your friend,go by his boat house all the time.

Yes, Magicfloat I live on Smith Lake year round. If you know where our friend lived when he bought the 26' Awesome then you know where I live. I am 2 boat houses past his old place coming from your direction. I was told this story at the B'ham boat show a few weeks back. I assume you were there and maybe he stopped by?

Yeah,after all the drives he put on the Awesome it's got to be tough having a drive problem on the new boat.

This was Lia's reply to this post I sent her.
 

While Lia was explaining the deposit issue she should have addresed the "used B-max" that was installed on that boat.Can't belive they really just hung up on that guy . when they found out they were "found out" then they fessed up to the fraud.What a terrible way to do business..Can't treat people like that when they are spending big money and could go to other boat builders for their product.

I would say that there is a good possiblity that she knew nothing of the drive issue. My wife has nothing to do with any of our businesses. If I died tomorrow she would have a difficult time sorting things out. My businesses are not near the level that HTM is. Forrest

FWK , You are probably right about that.If a mechanic pulled a old dusty drive out of the corner of the shop and installed it as a new product I'm sure he didn't make a announcment about it..But I can't imagine that it was done without some of the "higher ups" knowing about it..

I disagree with the comment about the higher ups. I own my own business and I know that there is some things that go on that are wrong. What they actually are, I do not know. But it does happen, Why, another question I do not know.:(

I am just saying my wife would not know. That is not to say that Lia did or did not know the inner workings of HTM. I do not know how involved she was in day to day business. But the major people in the company are gone so I would say give her a chance. If she did not I know she is getting a education now and I hope the best for the whole HTM family. Though some of the comments would concern me. The only time my wife cares and gets involved is when money gets tight. Forrest

I agree 100% with what you said Forrest.

Thunderdan....Remember that you can hire all the slackers that you want..And if they are going against company policy and you are aware of it then get rid of them..Why not???
Being a business owner you should know you are responsible for their actions..Remember the saying.."The buck stops here"...Well insert your name in place of the word -here-.

Supercrash,

If I know about it then absolutely I can act on it. But i would be fooling myself to say that there are not some things that happen that I would disagree with. We do try to hire the most competent people that we can, but it is impossible for me to supervise them the entire time that they are working. In my operation 99 percent of our work is not done in a central location but out in the field. We run GPS on all of our service trucks etc so we do try and minimise our exposure to those "types" of events that can happen, but unfortunately they still do. So basically my comment was that it is possible, maybe or maybe not probable, that the drive thing happened without any of the "higher ups" knowledge.

There may be a mistaken time table here. The drive problems were found prior to the tragedy. As far as I know no discussion of this problem has gone on with HTM since the accident. I called my friends business and he is in Las Vegas for R&R. I would think there would be little problem varifying through B-Max after all they should know! I will find out more details in the next few days and post what information I can. I am however, uncomfortable with people piling on this issue just to be mean. I am not doing that, I am trying to put up only facts as I know them. The owner of this boat has not authorized me to air his dirty laundry. If he is comfortable with this forum, I am sure there is enough of a paper trail to lead to the proper conclusion.

HTM's response to our thread is basically the way we have been treated throughout this entire ordeal. After visiting the plant the first time I begged my husband not to do business with them. I walked away that day with a terrible feeling. When you make a purchase like this in your life it should be fun experience. We have met with other manufacturers and it was like night and day!

I'm not aware of any used parts being put into new boats. Logic would tell you that someone knew about it going on because there would be no motivation for a worker to put in a used part. I'm sure they don't get paid anymore or less for doing so.:confused: