Why so many boats with broken hour meters?
 

Quite a few of the boats I have been helping my parents look at have hour meters that dont work anymore. Are the factory installed hour meters that bad that they stop working after a few years, or is it a example of the owner just trying to hide how many hours are actually on the boat. The 88 Sunsation and 78 Sea Ray they saw both had stoped hour meters. The 86 Liberator and 84 Chris Craft both had working hour meters. For several of the boats I called on for information the owners said they did not know how many hours were on the boat because the meter stoped working.

Nothing lasts forever and after 20 years if the hour meter isn't working, its no surprise. The overall condition on a 20 year old boat is a lot more important than the actual hours.

What he said. :eureka::eureka:


...or, are they in south FL looking at them? :D

Do you expect 20-25 year old cars to reflect the actual mileage? It is a mechanical gauge that is apt to break at some point. What if the two working boats just reconnected the gauges or replaced them ten years ago so they are not correct anyway?

The newer power can have the hours verified with a scan tool but I think you need to get into this century to get those motors.

There are no 20-25 year old boats in S. FL anymore! The sun, salt water and hurricanes take care of them!

Just wondering,what kind of hours are you expecting to see on a 20 year old boat anyway???
some people think a 2000 boat with 500 hours is too much,If you think about it thats only about 55 hours a season,thats nothing.
So what hours do you think a 20-25 year old boat should have?

I always look at the condition of the boat first then I start comparing the things I find to see if they all match up, condition of the bilge, oil leaks on and around the motor, condition of the wiring all over the boat. But on quite a few of the boats I have looked at the owners admited the hour meters did not work anymore. Maybe I am just being too critical, but on my own stuff I want ALL the gauges to be working. ( I an hour meter on my generator for the car trailer to keep track of oil change intervals). The liberator I looked at was a 1986 and the hour meter was approaching 225. I looked at every inch of that boat and all I could find wrong was a passenger side seat had been repaired where the screws pulled out of the plywood bottom. The boat looked as good as the day it came out of the factory, but the guy was also asking top dollar for it too.

When I bought my 26' Nova Spyder 5 years ago the owner admitted to trying to zero-out the hour meter on one motor when he replaced it, and broke it. The stbd motor read 515 hours, and the port read 4000 and some-odd number! For some reason, until I replaced the gauges, that meter would "race" when the power was turned on to it? Dunno why, but it did. These guys are right, keep in mind you are looking at an offshore boat that has endured a quarter of a century's worth of "Good Times" :drink:
Anywho, good luck, and happy hunting!

I would say have it surveyed. As long as it all checks out, who cares how many hours are on it.

You can get the hours off of most Merc motors dating back way before this century, any engine with a thunderbolt ignition module can be hooked up to a scan tool and have the run history read. Any competent Merc dealer can do this for you. They need the genuine Merc scan tool, I believe it is the only one that is capable but I could be wrong on that part.