Problems with Arneson 7M Surface Drives
 

I have 2013- 338 Skater that has only 30 hours, with Arneson Marine 7M drives. I would like to know how many other peeps are having manufacturing/set up issues with Arneson Marine drives. During the building process of my Skater, myself, Rik from Arneson and others had numerous meeting and dinners. This way they had an understanding of speeds I was looking to get from my Skater. Remember Rik what you asked my wife and her response. You asked her if I could do it, what did she say, "If you could build drives that can handle it that Louie could drive it." From the very first time and ea time after, drives ever hit the water there has been issues. First time rubber boot fell off taking out one of my props, which I had to pay for prop repair, and Rik was sending me new rubber boots. Well they must be lost in the mail cause I have never seen them, I have asked about new ones over and over again for 2 yrs now. Second time took boat out it blows a trim cylinder and oil was leaking everywhere. after that trim cylinders blew two more times. I have had the boat for 3 seasons now and have yet to have boat set up correctly due to these drives constantly breaking with no help from Rik. I know for fact others are having same issue, cause I have spoken to them (all well known boat racers/companies /people with same boat as mine). All have expressed having the same issues with drives. Everyone of them agree that it is a bad design of drives. Rik @ Arneson has had my drives now for over 4 months after I had one drive break during a poker run,(see attached pics). Rik and I spoke regarding repairs Rik agreed to repair drive for no cost and re-gear drives(I agreed to pay for new gears) and install the stronger cases that he now has(obviously he has built stronger cases for this set up since he has had so many fail ) so I sent them to him. I have called multiple times in the beginning I got run around about waiting to get the gears made. Now Rik won't even answer his phone or return my v/m. I guess since I am just a small time racer and not a big money customer, then he is not concerned with me or my business. I just wanted to warn others about these drives and customer service issues. I don't want to see anyone else losing their hard earned money or maybe even people getting hurt or killed over these drives, he needs to step up to the plate and stand behind his product like a business owner should do.

http://i1126.photobucket.com/albums/...psgzqdzrhe.jpg

Can someone please pass me the butter and salt shaker???

Uno...

Dos...

What power?

I deal with Rik@Arneson for years.

No problems with his product
No problems with his promises.

Sucks to hear, Louie!

NOT ALL TRUE HERE.
First of all, Louie I have never talked to you about the drives on my boat. Don't be posting **** about me!
I have more hours in a 338 Skater than anyone and anytime I call RIK @ Arneson, he is always helpful in answering my questions and offering help. I have ran my boat with all the big boats right down the channel at LOTO without any problems.
I'm sure your classy post will get you great service from RIK. Just remember he is Arneson so he could tell you to take a hike.

TRUMP for President

Shots fired!

Subscribed

There are always two sides to every story. I do not have a dog in this fight. Rik was very responsive to my needs during my 338 build. I had a great experience.

Chris Helt are you saying your Arneson drives have never broke? yes or no?

I thought they were the **** and every boater should own them ? that suck,s louie .

I thought they were the sheet and every boater should own them ? that suck,s louie .

Sorry to hear about your problems. These boats can be beast. Stay with it.......

Powered by 1150 HP- No I do not have an unlimited cash flow but I to am more than capable and UPC certified to drive cats/power boats. I have driven for many years with no accidents. I have competed for more than 15 years at many powerboat/charity events and poker runs. I have been class winner in many of LOTO Shootouts competitions. I am also current recorded holder for more than one cat class in LOTO Shootout. I to have ran along side many of the Big Boys but none of that matters. Facts are I had no problems with Rik in the beginning either I know things don't always work the way they should, and was willing to over look some of this smaller stuff. My point here is I was told I would have them back within a few weeks. Now here it is 4 months later and still nothing and every time I try to reach him for answers Rik does not answer or return my calls. Which he should it is only good business and if he had I would not be on here questing others. Let me repeat I did not come on here to bash Arneson. I am just stating issues I am having in order to see if it is just my drives/service issues or if other peeps are having same issue. Also at no time did I mention anyone's name, but I admit I did not word thread correctly. What I mean is I have spoken to many on the powerboat industries leading professionals and drivers. These professionals who are associated with the same boat or similar type as mine. All these professionals have stated that others with the same/similar boat as mine are have the same problem with their Arneson drives. Again I don’t want to bash Arneson, I just want my phone calls returned and my drives repaired and returned as promised that’s all.

Sorry to hear this! Hope you get things resolved and back on the water soon

Sorry to hear about your problems , my experiences with arneson has been good so far. Correct me if I am wrong but I thought the M7 kit was intended for a bravo conversions .

4 months and no drives!sounds like poor customer service to me.that can,t be good for business.

Rik does do a 7M conversion kit but also does standard kit.

What is the difference between the two set-ups

I have no experience with the 7M conversion kit so I could not tell you. Maybe Rik will responded to your post and answer you. I would have thought/hoped Rik would have responded to this thread. Rik has to know this thread is going by now with how the power boat family works regarding information.

Oh he will, just a matter of time. A lot of Rik strokers around here, I am sure his PM box has some fresh messages. If what you are saying is true about the 4 month time frame, well, that sucks.

Yes it does suck, I have no reason to lie. Once again I am not here to bash anyone or to get a bashing session going. My hope is Rik will contact me so we can get this resolved. I would love to get my boat back together, I see you are from MI so you can understand how short our boating season is.

I personally know of a customer that was told 3 weeks and then Rik kept the guy on the hook for 3.5 months. He could not move forward with his project and now is scrambling to finish.
We have short summers here , this isn`t Florida, to ruin a guys short summer with bad customer service is inexcusable!!

Wow... my bubble has burst. This is the first time of have heard of people having cust service issues or breakage woes...

that dodging phone calls chit it just that a bunch of sheet... man up at least and make it happen for your customer or at the very least keep him in the loop, when your in the wrong to dissapear...

I sure hope this is resolved quickly...

Why did rik say you were having these breakage issues???

What are they attributed to?

So what, he is retooling a part to make them stronger? Rm

If you can build it , Ole Louie can drive it. Classic. Lol

It looks like those Eddie Young motors are too stout for the Arnesons, great bragging point for Eddie. :drink:

No need to insult my height! I am well aware that I am short, thank you very much.

I don't own Arneson's but I have sourced a lot of parts through Rik over the years. He's extremely helpful, gets stuff to me right away, and the costs are real reasonable. These posts don't sound like the same guy I've dealt with. I've also never heard anybody complain about Rik before either. It's been just the opposite!

Have you tried calling Aero Marine? Carmen is his wife, and Rik is there frequently.

He also may be in Europe working and hasn't seen this yet.

Wow, I don't know either party in this dispute/nightmare, but if it's all true, it's inexcusable. As a fellow boater, I can't even imagine the frustration that Louie has been going through! Spending the kind of money that he has on a set-up that is supposed to be "The Best of the Best" and then experiencing problem after problem from day one?! And each time thereafter?! Seriously?! I'd be ready to take a bullet! Dialing a new boat in is one thing, but catastrophic failures on every ride is gut-wrenching. Then, to take someones drives that have been flawed since day one and promise to make them right, only to keep them in boat jail for four months?! Now, Rik won't even return Louie's phone calls/VMs??? Are you kidding me?! I can certainly understand why this post went up on OSO. I just hope for Louie's sake, that Rik won't return his calls or respond to this thread because he is too busy fixing Louie's drives!

Scot....pass the popcorn. Its my job to ask for pics of the Skater.....its what I do. PICS please.

The customer service I have received from Rik and Arneson has been well above anyone else in the marine industry. I don't know anything about this specific issue but there is probably more to the story. I will say that is a lot of power going through that size u-joint.

I have tried to call him 4 times this morning with no response,my wife put a post on his face book page yesterday and he deleted her from his page so the tag was deleted.I sure would like to no what i did to him.

Re: the picture - what failed first? Did the U-joint fail and take out the case or vice versa?

So he,s done with you it look,s like , sad and want,s to peddle his product on here . It look,s like this issue could have been hazardous to your heath .

I honestly have no idea what broke first when I pulled boat out this is what I seen. It was Middle of Sept at end of season when it happened @ LOTO. I was going down lake w/6 peeps in boat, in the low 140s mph hit a couple cross waves. Then boat took a sudden hard left hook barely missing another boat full of peeps by 1-2 boat lengths.

So sorry to hear of this Louie, As many of us have I have followed your build, and had wondered what ever became of this project. Sad to hear of the issues. I truely wish you the best with this and hope the drive issues get resolved!! That's a hellava sweet boat you have!!

This is very sad.

Regardless if someone is "done with him" or everyone else got great service so there is "another story".
Everyone deserves an answer, even if that answer is "go take a hike, I am done with this".

Just ignoring and hoping it goes away on its own is unacceptable for anyone in any business.