Is my 2003 Baja 25 bilge pump supposed to kick on automatically? and does a battery have to be turned on for it to work? Also does the front cabin in these boats have a bilge pump or do you have to suck the water out using a shop vac? thanks for the input

One bilge pump and even with the switch off the pump should work. You can test by filling up bilge with water and have battery off or reach down and flip the float switch.

water in the front should flow thur a drain to your bilge ... as far as the battery i would shut them off and put a garden hose in a fill it up and see what happens ..... but no it does not have a front pump..

As others have said, test your float switch to see if it's working. The pump is wired past the battery switch, so you should always have power to the float switch. If you're getting water in your cabin, you may not have the bow tipped up enough (on the trailer) to allow the water to run back to the bilge. In the water, the boat should be tipped back all by itself.

I have a 01 25 outlaw, mine does have a cabin pump however that one will not work if the batt switch is off. I actually pulled the fuse on that one because it was running non stop as long as the batt switch was on. I think the float is stuck and I can't get to the pump to fix it without pulling up all the carpet up and I wasn't about to do that. The cabin will drain into the engine compartment bilge. And yes the main bilge pump will work if the batt switch is off, but just to make sure use the garden hose method with your batt switch off.
Hope this helps.

On my 25 OL I recently flushed 5 gallons of water through the cabin to wash out the carpet (because of spilt beer). I thought the water would either be pumped out by the front bilge pump, or drain into the rear bilge. Neither of which happened. I removed the cabin step and discovered that there is absolutely no way that bilge water can drain back from the cabin area. This makes sense as it also means that dangerous fumes cannot make their way up from the engine compartment. This is the reason for an independent front bilge pump. I just needed to replace the fuse on mine. Make sure the float switch and pump filter are clear of debris.

My 272 also has a front bilge pump under the step going into the cabin, when I accidentially discovered it there it was non-functioning and just flopping around in there, I have to imagine on these boats that actually get bounced around pretty hard that it needs to be checked once in a while. When I re-rigged my boat in 2002 I added a extra bilge pump in the back that will actually pump out almost all the water in bilge vs my stock one that was above the bottom somewhat, Smitty