Fuel tank leaking
 

I have a 2005 39 Outerlimits Quattro,which i purchased brand new in 05.Ever since day one i always noticed a gas smell,which i was told was common with an Outerlimits.Over the past couple of seasons i have noticed the smell getting stronger,always coming from the cabin.My mechanic and myself noticed yesterday a small amount of gasoline in the shower bilge.I was told some years back that Outerlimits uses the vacuum bag fuel cells.After speaking to Outerlimits yesterday i was told that since the ethanol has been increased in gas,that the bags are deteriorating.I was also surpised to hear that they expect me to pay for this to be corrected.My answer to this was that i didn't have a choice of what type of tank should go in this boat,so why should i be held responsible for this?I was also told by some people with first hand knowledge that this has been a common occurance with the 39's.I was also dumfounded to why Outerlimit's did not send letter's out to their customers making them aware of this issue.Is Outerlimit's more concerned with their "bottomline",than the safety of their customers???Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.Thank you.

At the same time how can you expect a business to fix something because of a change in fuel which was completely out of their hands??

Thats like saying 10 years from now if you bought a 2015 Gas powered vehicle and in 2020 gas no longer existed and electric cars ruled the road. And you want Ford to refund you your money.

Situation sucks but on a six year old boat that a company has nothing to do with it, I dont think you have a complaint.

Tanks have to be replaced/repaired on all the older Skaters too. Like soldier4402 said, it's not like OL knew gasoline was going to be re-formulated. I do find it weird that you had a small of gas all along and that it is common. I have not heard that about OL's.

don't think it was limited 2 39's!!! have a friend w/ a 42 that had the prob!!!?????????

But I would say maybe OL should have at least sent a warning message or something of that nature.

But with that said when does the responsibility for a product from a manufacture end. Your boat is 6 years old clearly out of any warranty. How long would you really expect a company to be liable for something, specially something out of their control?? If you smelled fuel the day you bought it you should have brought it back.

Boats are not cars where they have 5 year warranties, boat constantly break and people use them poorly. There is no way one could expect a boat maker to stand behind everything on a boat after five years.

Believe me ,after 25 years of boatingi know boats constantly break .The issue is that they chose that type of tank because they wanted a 39 foot boat that could run 100 miles an hour! If they put an aluminum tank in ,the top end numbers would have make the boat harder to market.To me ,that was a chance that they took,that did not pan out.

IMO I would think OL would do the labor for free and just have you buy the new parts. Since you bought the boat new. If you are the second or third owner it would be understandable for them to charge.

Thank you CLA, i actually left the owner of the company(who i have known for 11 years through the poker run circuit) a message actually saying that.

I strongly disagree. Outlerlimits should have at a minimum notified all their owners that a serious life threatening prolem was occuring. Same with Skater.

Now, if outerlimits were half as good a company as some of the higherend production boats, they would replace every single one. By law they are responsible for defects up to 5 years after construction begins. This boat is barely out of that range. Tiara had a fuel tank recall in 1999-2000, mostly due to bilge water causing excessive corrosion on extended range aluminum tanks. They recalled the affected models all the way back to 1980. We as a boating community should demand higher standards instead of accepting lowers ones that will end up getting us killed in a 6 year boat, solely for the reason of saving a few pounds. I don't know how they sleep at night.

You have to replace bladders at best every 5 yrs. They are nice for the weight savings but need constant maintenance. I can't tell you how many bladders we have replaced over the yrs but its quite a few.