Marine Dealer

I stopped by a Ranger dealership to ask about dropping boat for a issue with sea star steering and they told me if you didn't buy it here we won't work on it. The same dealer just serviced the engine in February. They begged me to bring it in then but don't want to even talk about it now. The only thing they could say is we so short handed. I didn't ask to fix it then just when could I get it on the schedule. WTH money is money. I call another dealer today, so on the schedule. This the new way of doing business I guess.

They must really be hurting for service people.

good service people are in high demand some dealers have chosen to take care of the folks that buy their boats .

I know of 3 dealerships that are doing this... They're swamped with just their customers so they're turning away people who didn't buy from them... That's why you should support local businesses... Now me, I bought my boat from a dealer 130 miles away because no one sold Bullets locally... I worked through them to order the boat from a Bullet. I had them rig everything but the motor. When they were done rigging I picked up the boat and had a local dealership rig the engine... A lot of extra driving, some additional cost but it was worth it because the local guy feels like I gave them some business and he'll work me in if I'm having a problem... Dan

Think about it. If they are swamped with their own customers they are turning out a [censored] product. Go elsewhere.

Hey guys go easy on me please. I found a 84 skeeter strada f-80. Does anyone know of a place I could contact about having it checked out before trying to buy or what is everybody's opinion.

TIA

Johnny,

You can check out that boat on your own without a dealer. Go to Tactical Bassin on Youtube. They did a really good 20 minute vid on buying a used boat. For sure do a compression test. You can rent the tester at O'reilly's for a deposit.

That is how I bought my boat.

Was this Ranger dealership in Del Rio?

The dealer I bought from closed years ago due to health reasons. I have used the dealer since then even with it being a little drive to reach. They have serviced boat for at least 8 years on a regular schedule. This is a very very clean boat and I don't want to spend 90 to 100 thousand just to be a special customer.

The boat dealership world has some issue..... and the manufacturers need to clamp down on them

That guy is a trip. We got off the water early to buy tackle we needed for a trip. We got there 15 minutes before close. He comes driving up on a skid steer from across the highway and tells us we are too late. I pointed to times on the door and told we were fixing to drop a lot of coin. He then Went on a rant about it being fried chicken day with his wife and he would never miss one. Weird all the way around but that [censored] will never get another penny of my money and we literally spent thousands in there each year as that’s when we would pick up all our Yamaha fluids for the year.

Ya think?!

They don’t want to service anything. From anyone. They just want to sell new boats and new motors. Then they want to block your number.

Back during Covid, my buddy and I were gonna fish the Permian open. Went to the the dealership to get my Mexico license and some odds & ends tackle. My buddy has know the owners (let’s call them JIM and GAIL for sake of discussion) for decades. She wouldn’t sell me a Mexico license, “because she was saving what she had for friends”.

Called up James at Falcon Lake Tackle and he had it to me in minutes.

I know I’m not a consistent customer of “Jim’s”, but I wouldn’t help pee on their building, if it were on fire.

I was gonna buy a hub when down there once. Basically the only hub they were putting on rangers at the time. They said they would have to order one. A dealer should have a few things in stock like the most common hub that went on basically every ranger trailer at the time.

Y’all take it easy on Jim and Gail. Long time family friends and good as gold if you know them. Small town with little to no qualified help, so he pretty much does it all mechanically.

I’ve known them since I was 3 years old, but understand what some may think, Jim has no filter and does it his way. I’ve seen it with my own eyes many times. He’s a trip!

Ohhhhh, so you were the one that she was saving the Mexican fishing license for!

The marine industry is hard right now. We're out in the middle of nowhere East Texas. Finding qualified help is impossible. No good young techs, and the good ones leave to work automotive industry or elsewhere that pay much better. We're almost 50 boats deep, but we will take in any and everything, and do our best to help folks when we can. There's still good dealers out there, but we're overrun something fierce and the stress is something serious. Lot lot lot of impatient customers, but we try to take it in stride every day.

Well. As much as boat mechanics charge, y’all should get paid better.

That kind of attitude I wouldn’t ever buy a boat from them period.

If you are in business for yourself then you most likely understand how bad the labor shortage is, especially skilled labor, if you are a 9 to 5 er you may not, it is brutal trying to keep a good staff.

Yep I understand about labor issues. It seems alot want to get paid for not much effort.

Best thing to do is learn to work on as much of your own equipment as you can handle. I know there are some things you will need a service department to take care of but 90% of this stuff is fairly easy to maintain, troubleshoot, and repair yourself if you’ll do some research.

I know it’s defeats the purpose of buying a high priced boat with promises from a dealer to keep it fully maintained and covered but you could go months without a boat if you’re that stubborn.

I hate not having my boat so it takes something major to turn it over to service.

I don't mind sharing: My guys are on combo base pay and commission pay, but my 2 lead guys average $30/hr, which in East Texas should be pretty good money. Our shop rate is $110/hr. Many of our local tractor dealerships are well over $150/hr, all of the RV shops are in that zone, as well as the big auto dealerships. Good techs will leave because those shops can afford to pay even more at those kind of rates. While we do have a yard full, I still can't get behind raising our rate at this time. Tractors and trucks are used to make money: people will pay to fix them. Boats on the other hand are toys, and while they are just as, if not more difficult to work on than today's automotive stuff (because there's so many vehicles that most have computers, manuals, or other means that tell you exactly how to do the job), I still can't justify raising our rate yet. My 2 cents. Young kids have much better avenues to enter the automotive and diesel tech industry than they do the marine industry. Most business of ANY kind are having labor shortages, but the marine industry is as bad or worse as any.

Every service oriented business took a dump during Covid. Many have never recovered. Most of the problems came from lack of help. Remember how many restaurants weren’t able to open there dining rooms long after the bans were lifted and continued to drive thru only because they did not have the help. Covid(and a certain political party) taught people not to work! If you think this statement^^^^ is meant to be political “you’re dang skippy”!!! 🤔🤷🏻‍♂️🙄

I have read your posts and feel for you and your business. That being said do research on your competitors within 90 minutes of you and if needed raise your prices. Now is the time every other industry has, why not you. It seems to me your company is doing a stand up job. Get paid for it and take care of your techs. My 2 cents.

Increase your shop rate to 140, pass the extra to them and get them to 60 an hour ..... I know for a fact there are fry cooks pushing 20 an hour in east Texas. It is what it is.

Instead of the marine industry constantly lamenting the lack of good help, just what are they doing to recruit new talent into the field? Seems like a situation ripe with opportunities for partnerships with schools and junior colleges.

They like the status quo, if it takes 6 weeks to get a boat fixed it doesn't bother them. They pay the least amount they can and the wait is your problem. Thats why I think the manufacturers need to take a harder look at who they let have dealerships. At the end of the day bad dealerships damage their brand. When DSM stopped carrying ranger it pretty much took ranger off my list as the other 2 closer options for me were deal breakers.

This all sounds great and good. There are schools that partner with shops or have a tech class but the reality is that out of a 100 kids that take the class - 1 (one) will make a tech, if your lucky. This isn't a recent thing either, been like this for years.

We are also trying to do our best to hold the prices of our American made tools. It is becoming next to impossible since most have the attitude of those above that say "why not raise the rates, everyone else is". I appreciate your approach here very much and if I were closer, regardless of wait, I would give you my business because you are trying to do your part to temper the price increases.

the marine business is not for the faint hearted the manufacturers have had to put in map pricing to keep dealers in business some dealers that are selling a boat to someone on the net will sell it cheaper because they know they will never have to service it. an when a guy drives 500 miles to purchase a boat then thinks he will rollup to the local dealer an be first in line those days are over. covid has made the marine business a lot worse with how many boats were sold an the prices folks paid for them . most dealers have figured out the most important customer is the ones that bought their boat from them.as far as more tech this business is terrible in the winter you sit an wait for some thing to do an then when the sun comes out everybody wants to go to the lake right then. there are a lot of folks with ideas about the boat biz they should pony up an giver it a go .

Try and get a bass boat worked on in November around here. When they start winterizing the wake boats you are going to the back of the list.

Haha! Now that's one thing we don't do. Outboards of any kind, year, make or model, but NO I/Os or Inboards here! Thanks fellas for some of the kind words. As far as the industry goes, there's really only one "tech school" that I know of being Marine Mechanic's Institute in Florida. I don't know a ton about their program, but I know it costs money. Around 30k for the 1 year if memory serves correctly. We have had one MMI grad work here. He was a great tech really. He is no longer here for personal reasons, nothing to do with his training. But he was deep in student debt.
Now, each brand has their own schooling, for example, Mercury has Mercury University, which I pay a fee to be able to send my techs there. However, I have NEVER had a tech work very hard toward those classes, despite the fact that I do incentivize it. It's also common in the industry for a tech to use a dealer to get their certification, only to then bounce to a bigger dealer that pays more once they get the cert from a smaller dealer.
The problem is certainly larger than me, and hopefully larger minds prevail and we figure out a way to turn it around in this industry. It's a good industry, it really is, and it's fun when you don't let the customers run you. In summary, I hope you guys all find a good local dealer, because there are some left, and those of you frustrated with your dealer at home, give them as much patience as you can! Hopefully they deserve it!

$30k is insane. My wifes working on her doctorate degree and it isn't near that much a year.

Seems my dealer used to give their customers preference when in for service but that seems to be fading. It’s making my next new boat brand decision easier and easier the longer I wait. Parts that were ordered months ago showed up 3 weeks ago. Seems I went to the back of the line again as I’m still waiting.

I am very satisfied with my dealer of choice for the past 13 years or so, I hope I did not jinx myself.

The entire staff at Rockwall Marine are awesome!

We are screwed because there is no competition here. What pizzes me off, they make you leave the boat there for weeks, knowing that they won’t be touching it. Heaven forbid they call you a day or two before they actually plan on looking at it.

Yep, gonna take me days to get it clean again after sitting on their caliche lot for a month!

They weren't the only ones that played that game of saving for friends.
Back in the old days they had to GUESS how many licenses they might sell in a given period and GO TO Mexico and get them.
Now that they can get them on a computer there are still some ignorant issues as to how many licenses, they can get within a certain time frame.. And that's only when the Mexican computer system is up and working.

Local dealer by me it great to deal with. They will make an appointment for when they can work on it and you can drop it off that morning.

sartin will put me on a list and call a couple of days prior, I have also dropped it off and left it a couple weeks prior. worth it when I know the work will be done right.

always been that way, one time I used a dealer on 10/south side maybe by de zavala? it's been over 40 yrs. lol

plan b was drive to canyon or medina, and that was sketchy on quality of work.

I'm an industrial mechanic by trade and have been doing this since the early 80's. The one thing I've noticed; especially in the last decade, is folks just aren't coming into this field or anything mechanical because there are so many other jobs; things computer related, that are much easier physically, that being a mechanic of any kind just isn't very attractive. The plus side is, this shortage is driving the wages up in this field to where a six figure income is beginning to be easily achievable. You younger dudes, if you want a good paying job and don't want to do 4 years of college? Here's your path. Two year JC program and you are there. If you'll add some electrical tech classes that's even better, more $$$$.

There's a guy here that owns a Mercury shop. He advertised he was looking for an entry level tech and "If your interested in a career opportunity with options to go to school and become a factory certified Mercury Mercruiser technician give us a call today!" ... Took him awhile but he finally found someone... If I was 35 years younger I would have jumped at the opportunity... Dan