UNBELIEVABLE POOR AND LESS THAN ACCEPTABLE.

[valkie]

Hi All;

I just have to get this off my chest, I am soooooo angry.

three years ago I purchased my first new boat.
I researched every possible boat and finally came up with a Stabicraft 1650 fisher.

Then I needed to find someone who had them for sale.
This is when it all went pear shaped.

I purchased a new Stabicraft and only after having the Mercury engine serviced for the first time, at a huge cost, that the dealer was not an authorized Mercury dealer he said he was.
Luckily, Mercury has allowed me to retain my warranty as I now have it serviced ONLY by a local Mercury authorized service centre.

Then the troubles started.
The boat and engine are faultless, love them both.
But the following list of defects have been cropping up all the time, culminating in my most recent epic failure of my electronics while out at sea yesterday.

1) The fitting of the engine had the cables and hoses too short, resulting in the grommet pulling out every time I turned hard left.
     The dealer blamed Mercury, Mercury blamed the dealer, I ended up repairing the damn thing myself at the cost of new cables and hoses,
     because they were too short for the fitting.
2) On its maiden voyage, while attempting to drive the boat onto the trailer, I found it very difficult and even had the boat off at 45 degrees to
     the trailer at one stage. Upon further investigation, I found that the guides and rails had moved and had slipped back down onto the trailer
     rendering them useless and scratching my brand new hull.
     Again the dealer blamed the trailer manufacturer, and the trailer manufacturer explained that he supplied the trailer, and that it was up to
     the dealer to fit it to the boat. Part of this process is to tighten the bolts when fitting it, this was not done, I could turn the bolts with my
     fingers. The dealer din not accept fault, and now I have a nice scratch on my hull.
3) The first time I tried to use my radio, I lost all electronics, fish finder, radio, lights everything. Great at night Ill tell you.
     I checked the fuse and replaced it with one of the same size, but on using the radio, again everything went black.
     I was several hundred klm away from the dealer so I took the boat to a local dealer who diagnosed the problem in 10 seconds.
     The fuse for all electronics was a 1 amp fuse, apparently the radio alone requires at least 5 and should have 10 amps, the gps requires 3
     and the lights better than 5. He was amazed that everything actually worked, but stated that when I used the radio there was no way the fuse
    could carry the current. He also found that there were additional fuses for each device, so he put a 15 amp fuse in and all was well again.
4) During his investigation he stated that I should have cleaned out all the swarf from cutting out the GPS hole, apparently he said the aluminium
    swarf was everywhere and could cause corrosion and possibly electrical issues. I told him I had it fitted by the dealer, he just shook his head
    and said, dealers like that give us all a bad name. He cleaned it out for me and only charged me for the fuse. I will be extolling the virtues of
    this dealer near and far.
5) Arriving home I decided to have a look at the wiring, Primitive comes to mind, disgusting is probably a better description. I decided to leave
    it be for the time being as I was unable to determine what was what. BIG MISTAKE.
    I have had several electrical issues since.
6) Intermittent radio function, caused by crimped wires that were not even soldered and came loose.
7) GPS problems when banging around at sea, later tracked down to the plug being only partly inserted into the socket and not screwed in.
Transducer issues, later traced to being far too deep into the water, even the mound was below the hull bottom. This guy is a bum.
9) Intermittent lights, again the crimped wires.
10 and finally my electrical system died yesterday while several miles off shore in crappy weather and land not visible.
    I had to limp home using my compass to head in the right direction.

The cause of this massive problem?
Again a crimped connection, but this time to all the electronics of the dash.
The wire was bare copper wire, not even tinned, corrosion had eaten away at the wire and finally broken it.
The connection was hidden in the mess of wires, and was the main power feed, the crimp was done by a blind, retarded, idiot who did not have full use of his fingers as my 7 year old grand daughter could have done a better job.

I have now decided to re-wire the whole damn thing.
I gave up ages ago complaining to the dealer, he don't give a .........
So I will re-wire everything and this time do it properly.

Now you know why I need it off my chest.

[Keta]

GRRRRRR!

[David Hall]

Yikes no kidding, That's incredible.  Sorry for your troubles but sounds like you have the right fix.  Fix it yourself.  Then I'd find a good lawyer and go after that dealer.

[Superhook]

It's a bit hard to walk home after a break down when you are 20 miles out at sea .  You need a good mechanic or learn to do more yourself.  Been through repairing everything the paid professional touched so I have an idea how pissed off you would be.

[valkie]

Have calmed down a bit now.

I have been through the wiring and almost all is with tinned wire, at least the stuff that came with the various bits of electrical equipment.

Anything that was fitted by the dealer was bare copper wire, spent all morning cutting out and replacing wires and tidying up the tangled mess that was there.
Several wires were green and black from not being tinned wires, a failure in waiting.
Also found a wire from the instruments back to the battery terminal.
It was not attached to anything and was again untinned wire, I have no idea what it was there for, but it was just a live wire routed through the boat into the instrument box?.

I even dismantled the battery and master switch connections and cleaned them up before re-fitting them properly.

I forgot to mention in my post.
The original battery fitted to the boat was a 65 amp truck battery.
The Mercury, as any Merc owners will know, requires a 100 amp battery to start it in cold conditions.
I only found out about the battery when it wouldn't start on cold days.
I took my NEW motor to the Mercury expert and he pointed out that a 100 amp battery was required.
$280.00 later, I have a battery that kicks the Merc over regardless of the temp.

Hopefully now all will be well.

Cheers

[Dominick]

Yikes no kidding, That's incredible.  Sorry for your troubles but sounds like you have the right fix.  Fix it yourself.  Then I'd find a good lawyer and go after that dealer.

I'm sorry you had those problems.  Terrible workmanship.  You should have called a lawyer before fixing it.  Dominick

[Shark Hunter]

Hopefully you got it all sorted now Valkie.
Sorry for all your troubles.
If that boat would have been mine. I would have towed it back to the dealer and left it there.
Sounds like you are pretty handy.
I don't like wiring, but will do it when I have to.
I have only owned one Boat. I made many fond memories of it on the Lakes of Kentucky and Tennessee.

I had her for twenty five years. I let her go and I miss it to this day.
Not near Ocean Worthy, but I could cover some water quick.
Did all maintenance by myself. Bought new in 1988. Arrow Glass 18' prototype with Evinrude XP150.
25 years was a good run.

My boat of choice now is a Kayak. No muss, No fuss. Paddle power.

[valkie]

That be one seriously mean looking boat, Ill bet it flies.
I have a couple of mates who race huge inboards, but they have to do it on selected rivers as no lakes are flat enough most days.

Those boats are not well suited to Australian conditions.
We generally have wind every day and the lake I fish on can often get waves up to 3-4 feet.
Yesterday we were getting gusts up to 35 knots

Bass boats begin to struggle a bit in those conditions I have found.

My boat is a New Zealand make a Stabicraft.
It has aluminium sponsoons surrounding the hull and a sealed floor.
It is also a deep boat so you stand and lean against the sides.

The deep vee helps in sea keeping as well.
Yesterday I was fighting a 2.5 meter swell and a sea of an additional 2.5 meters.
Pretty nasty stuff, but well within the Stabis capabilities.

But, as with all things, half the battle is good maintenance and good setup.

[Bryan Young]

That is one heck of a boat. I love it. I think they are the best boats in rough water conditions.

Regarding wiring, be careful about running the wire. I believe the new coast guard code for wiring does not allow tinning of the copper wire because it makes it stiff and are prone to breakage. Additionally, tinned wire do not secure as well as bare copper wires I the crimp connectors.
I have to look it up again but I believe it to be true.

[valkie]

That is one heck of a boat. I love it. I think they are the best boats I. Rough water conditions.

Regarding wiring, be careful about running the wire. I believe the new coast guard code for wiring does not allow tinning of the copper wire because it makes it stiff and are prone to breakage. Additionally, tinned wire do not secure as well as bare copper wires I the crimp connectors.
I have to look it up again but I believe it to be true.

There may be a communication issue here

Tinned copper wire is generally used in boating applications in Australia as bare copper wires (Untiinned) quickly go green and corrode in the salty environment.
It may be called something else over there.
The soldered joints I do are far better than crimped joints as they make permanent contact.
I then "liquid insulate" the joint and then wrap it in insulation tape.

The loom is then secured by cable ties to keep it safe from vibration.
My last three boats were set up like this and I have never had a problem.

Perhaps its a terminology issue???

[Tiddlerbasher]

I come form a background of electronics and electrical engineering in the UK. Many decades ago it was common practice to tin the ends of copper wire (particularly multi stranded). Indeed almost everything to do with connections was tinned. The practice has almost stopped. pre- tinning can cause a poor joint over time for several reasons. Tinning causes multi-strand wire to be inflexible (as Brian has mentioned). The very act of tinning wire introduces resistance (the last thing you want in a connection). Copper wire can be joined in several ways but the joint should be made then the solder applied. Printed circuit boards are tinned only where components are soldered - the rest of the board is covered in solder resist - except edge connections which are gold plated (not because it's a better conductor but because it doesn't corrode). Silver would be a better conductor BUT it corrodes very easily.

For multi or single strand copper wire I will use crimped connectors (usually bullet). If water may be involved I wrap the joint with self-fuse silicon tape - water proof.  If simply twisting two wires together do so with bare copper then apply solder. The copper to copper is the joint - the solder just holds it all together (not recommended for multi-strand flexible wire).

[valkie]

Obviously there is a terminology issue here.

This is the tinned wire I use.


When I join the wires I remove the insulation to expose the pretinned wires.
I then twist the wires together and solder the wires to fix the joint.

Then I use a self sealing liquid insulation, then self sealing tape and finally wrap it in insulation tape.
The joint is more secure than any I have used on both my motorcycles and boats when exposed to water ingress and weather.

Using untinned wires allows the exposed copper wires to begin corrosion and they turn green/black and eventually corrode up inside the insulation.
Over time the wires fail.

Hope this clears up what I mean.
I have used this technique for many years and have never had a joint fail.

[Keta]

We are talking two things here, tined marine grade wire is not the same as tinning the wire.  The last time i checked marine wire was not bare copper.  Support all wiring so it does not flop aroun, work harden and break.

I use glue lined heat shrink tubing on your terminal ends?  Did you ues dilecteric grease on all tetminals?

[David Hall]

Tinning the ends of multisttand wire is still an acceptable practice, as are crimp connections.  When making a connection to a terminal block I tin the wire and add dielectric grease to the connection.  When using crimp connectors I strip and crimp the bare wire, coat with a good layer of liquid tape and then use heat shrink over the whole thing.  Sounds to me like your doing it right. 

[valkie]

Just came back from fishing.
Everything is now working perfectly.

The re-wiring did the trick

In the new year Ill completly strip the whole boat down and go oover every single inch of the wiring.
For now, I just wanna go fishing

PS
Caught nuffin but small throw back fish today
Oh well, maybe next time

Cheers guys