Lake Union Sea Ray service work

A

AJ 2000-34'

New Member
May 16, 2009
3
Hi everyone,

Who do you take your boat to for service work? I have been having the worst time (twice) with Lake Union Sea Ray. Is this common with everyone else or are they saving it up for me? Is there a better place to go?

Thanks for your help

Frustrated in Washington!
 
What problems did you have? I know Todd swears by them, I think anyway?
 
AJ 2000-34' said:
Hi everyone,

Who do you take your boat to for service work? I have been having the worst time (twice) with Lake Union Sea Ray. Is this common with everyone else or are they saving it up for me? Is there a better place to go?

Thanks for your help

Frustrated in Washington!
Click to expand...

I've taken my boats to them for service since 1991. I've had great service. Any issues I've had I've voiced my concerns and they've been addressed. Make sure you're communicating with them your needs and expectations.

Your description of both instances that were bad are completely vague, so how am I or anyone else suppose to answer "is this common with everyone else".

I trust them completely but make my needs known.
 
I probably don’t need to go into every detail of my experiences but I will touch on them in order to express my level of frustration and mistrust.
I had an issue 2 years ago with both my engines cutting out during hard acceleration. After having the mobile service come out twice without solving the issue, I decided to free up my time and check it out myself. I found a rotor that they claimed had been changed was not and I found 2 different distributor caps. Then after they came out to correct this I found a rotor that was incorrectly pushed on and of course it and the distributor cap were damaged. I ultimately gave up on their excuses and changed the fuel filters, added new fuel, new caps and rotors, new plugs (gapped correctly) and I solved the problem. You would think I would have not gone back… but after their move and a reported change in service manager, I thought it could not go bad again, after all I just need service done and who would know your boat better?
This year I asked them to come and do a generator service, engine(s) tune-up and annual service. The problems began with not being able to get a list of everything that the annual service included and getting a quote that they tried to renege on after the services were completed. I will spare you all the gory details in the middle but it ended with no generator service, the starboard engine won’t start without the emergency start switch, a broken vhf mike holder and a couple of items that may need attention in the future verbally given to me by the mechanics. Now I would expect, and asked for, a summary of any issues they found, any problems that need addressed immediately, etc. I was promised something several times but in the end there was nothing to give me. I have spoken to the service dispatcher, service manager and the store manager in trying to resolve this but I either get no return calls or a call from the next lowest person with more excuses, but no solutions.
I know that things can happen in any service type business, I own a service business, but the lack of attention to details and trying to resolve issues once they happened is perplexing. How do I know what was and wasn’t done? How do I head up to the San Juans in confidence? How do I represent that an annual service was done if I were to sell.
I can’t be the only one experiencing this type of service? Or maybe I’m expecting too much from a $2,000.00 tune-up and LOF?
Frustrated in Washington!
 
Sorry, I've been away for sometime with no free time, all work. But with summer returning, it's time to get my life back.

As for your review of Lake Union Sea Ray, the first thing would be to limit the discussion to the Lake Union Sea Ray on Lake Union. I know Todd has been using the Redmond location for his work lately, and I must say, I haven't had any work done there, but I like the people.

But my boat is on the ship canal and no trailer, so I know the Lake Union location fairly well. Why? Because even among their own people, my boat has been referred to as the unlucky lemon. The first year I owned it, it was with them more than it was with me. You get to know quite a few of the people pretty well when that happens... BTW, nothing completely horrible with the boat, but I'm coming up on two years of ownership and they still don't have it fixed. And you're right, something gets fixed but at the same time something else gets broken. I gave them a punch list last July. Nothing critical, but things that needed to get repaired and still under warranty... Things like a broken DVD player, a very small coolant leak at startup (that's the worst one) a failing waste line, etc. Well, they ordered the parts but I couldn't get them to schedule... then they did, last December (why not do it during lay up?). They still haven't been near the boat and it's almost June. I'll be making an appointment with the owner (I've been told by some of the people in sales/customer support to just take it to the top, go to his office and demand to see him).

Personally, the old location seemed fine for me. Patrick was the service manager, an ex-aerospace guy that actually knew quite a bit. They have a great mechanic, Carrington... I would trust any work he does. He knows his way in and out of boat better than anyone I've ever met. I had an odd leak after six months and to find it they basically took the boat apart, most all of it. He put it back together better than the factory built it. And since I have a background in repairing Aerospace products, I can tell you the fix he did was as good as I would have done for something quite a bit higher in performance. When I asked why he used the gold plated, belt and suspenders repair... he said he hated having to repair the same thing twice.

Now I think your problem is that Carrington isn't the only mechanic there... he seems to get the nightmares (btw, he and his mechanics like chocolate cake, pizza and I found out lately, Red Bull). Some of the other people, your issues don't surprise me.

Worse yet is the service manager. The gossip is... You would not believe how many complaints there are on her. I was contemplating having them cut the hole for my gps, nothing more. The guy said he could do it in no time, it would be perfect and since he wanted a minimum of one hour of labor, he said he'd cut the hole for the VHF at the same time. When I asked why I had got charged for an hour and a half, she just said too bad, pay it. Here-say... Many of the people that work there want to know what she has on the owner to not have been fired already.

You shouldn't have to deal with the issues that you are. Take it to the top, go upstairs see his assistant demand to see him immediately unless he's not there, then make an appointment. Life is short, your time is valuable and the owner should not what's going on...

That's my two cents and the advice I've been given from people that work there... that I'll be having to take myself.
 
I had my share of frustration 2 years ago with the Lake Union location for service. Yacht Performance Center on Portage Bay has done a good job for me at lower prices too!
 
Any good mechanics in the Gig Harbor area?
 
I've only had experience with the dealer as the boat is so new. Most work has been regular interval service work. Terry and Josh (Service Manger) from the Fife location are top notch.
 
Follow up - more of the same!
Starboard wouldn't start because of dead battery - not sure how they overlooked that.
First time out pushing hard across Lake Washington - lose an engine. Find a rotor not pushed on all the way (again) and destroyed a cap and rotor. If you saw my earlier note they did this to me before.
VHF mike holder doesn't show after 4 weeks - Our favorite service coordinator says "I have 3 other people waiting as well". How does she get away with this? Called parts directly and they send it 3 days later, but wrong one... of course!
Frustrated in Washington! but I'm... MOVING ON, good luck out there!
 
Just had service on my 2008 240DA. 100 hour service, Garmin GPS, Garmin VHF, Shakespeare Antenna, and also got some warranty work done on some spider cracks in the gell coat....gimbal bearing...exhaust bellows....

Dave Bowen at Lake Union Searay took care of me. I would recomend him any day!

Best,

Mark
 
Working with Arron at the Fife location on delivery of our new DA. It appears that the fact that he is a boat owner helps to make him understand what is needed, he always suggest the extra mile as the route to service. The extra mile is a good thing when you are trusting your family time to complete service work.

See you guys in the am

Scott
 
I know this is an old thread but I purchased a 1999 Sundancer 270SE from Lake Union of Fife as with all used boats after the purchase there were a couple things that needed to be repaired verbally before the purchase not in writing my mistake. The service department couldn't do the repairs unless they were paid for them sales and service are like two different companies as with all corporations and nothing was done till the store manager came back to work 2 days later within hours Randy had everything scheduled and came out to Foss Landing marina and went over everything with me. The next day we took the boat out and had no forward gear just reverse gave him a call he met me at Foss Landing the next day with his experience in service for 20+ years at Olympic Boat he pulled a cover off the outdrive and found a frozen hydraulic part replaced it and it still only had reverse unless you manually shifted the cable by hand and said I would need someone to tear the outdrive apart to fix it and left before I got home he called me to have the service call cancelled and meet him at the marina the next morning in the pouring down rain he showed up with Big Al with just about any part it would take to repair it all it turned out to be was just a bent and frayed shift cable between the drive and engine. All this was done on a sold as-is used boat. I can't speak for anybody else or their experience with Lake Union but I would refer and trust them with anything to do with my boat or a new purchase.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Forum statistics

Threads
113,185
Messages
1,428,146
Members
61,094
Latest member
Linword
Back
Top