My cousin and I are trying to get our first boat and we are really wanting an aluminum center console boat 18-20'. We are not very familiar with all the boat brands out there and need some help choosing the right boat for us. We were thinking aluminum because we don't want to be too afraid of hitting submerged stuff while running up creeks like you would in fiberglass. We were looking at the tracker grizzly's but didn't know if they were decent boats or just [censored] sold from bass pro. We also looked at a Lowe roughneck as well. The Lowe seemed a little more finished and not so cheap looking but i have no idea just need some help from y'all with the pros and cons of these type of boats and any suggestions on a better brand to look at. We are prolly looking for a barely used or new boat around 15-20 grand. cheaper is always better of course but we don't want to end up with a piece of [censored] so any help would be mush appreciated guy thanks.

Lowe's, g3 and Xpress boats probably your best bet. If I had the money I would go with Xpress. They have thicker hulls on most of their boats

Scandy-White, Boatright, Fifth lake and several other builders make lifetime hulls, stuff you buy at a bass boat dealer are something less.

Lowe's, g3 and Xpress may be best buy for the $, but far from a good aluminum boat.

My 20 foot xpress Center console open concept is 17 years old and doesn't leak a drop. It gets me in and out of places fiberglass boats will not go. Its survived getting bumped in the bow by a half ton truck. It only drafts 7-8 inches of water max. I run bayous a lot so there are always stumps and cypress knees and sometime I do bump them unintentionally.

Lowe grizzly xpress open vessels all of the mass produced aluminum boats are gonna be the same quality. To start out with stay in your budget and do your homework and you'll end up with a great rig.

Don't be afraid to crawl underneath a boat if your buying used. Look for patches, silicon, and hooks(dents) in the hull
Good luck

I had a G3 and was less than impressed. Xpress has a good reputation.
All of Seaarks XX72 boats are built with .125" aluminum.

Look at a good used Seaark...

I have a 16"ft one that is 20 years old and still in great shape, all welded, no pop rivets.
40hp Yamaha 2 stroke always fires right up..

i will check them out thanks for the input

If I was in the market for a new aluminum boat I would be looking at the Ranger RP190 CC.

https://youtu.be/mFlPBey4GRA?t=15

My Xpress XP18CC has been a great boat in the 4yrs I've had it. I don't abuse it, but I don't baby it either. I shopped comparable boats from the major manufacturers and it came down to the G3 or Xpress, Xpress won mostly because no G3 dealers around had any CC's I could see in person.

Lowe seemed to have an above average amount of bad reviews for broken welds and was priced a bit high IMO. Tracker wasn't really even on the list after the first look at their boat, design & build quality is horrible on the Grizzly CC. The only one I wish I had paid more attention to was Alumacraft. Sea Ark is a nice rig for sure, but you'll pay considerably more for it too, just wasn't in the budget, and another case of none to actually see before the sell.