Need some help on which Ray model to get and what is/isn't important

boughtabouy said:
Does maintenance really have to be so expensive? I changed my own oil last week and saved about $600 in a couple hours. That's a savings of $300/hour...tax free. Tranny's took another 2 hours. Not sure how much I saved there. My point...I think 10-20 % is a little much to budget for. Give the oil change a try and you'll never pay for another one.

K-
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I’m going step by step and doing more of my own maintenance but I don’t do everything nor do I know how to nor do I have the proper equipment to do it all.

Changing the anodes on the drives or touching up the paint, sure. Changing the oil is not difficult. I don’t know why your place charged so much for that.

Removing the very heavy Bravo III drives and doing the appropriate service with out owning a drive stand? No way. I don’t have the alignment tool. I don’t have a stand. I did see the photos of the drive stand Dennis made but so far I’m leaving that up to the mechanic.


10%-20% of the boats value when new for annual maintenance seems high. I’d say more like 1.5% for routine items and 2% for the unexpected.

I’m waffling on changing the impellers myself. I know I can’t do it alone because I will not fit. Should I do this relatively easy maintenance items with my 13 years old or wife as my bilge monkey? I’m not sure yet.
 
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Zooomer said:
I'm in Grand Rapids and plan on slipping my boat in Grand Haven. I'll use it probably 10-12 weekends and make one trip possibly to WI.
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google North Shore Marina and look at the brokerage list. It has about 114 listings of all makes and models. Same thing with Skippper Buds, Grand Haven. They list about 14 boats.

Any boat with a vaccuflush head should meet your "works like at home" requirement. You will find that at 6'1" late model 34' SRs have space limitations. I'm 6'4" and can't stand up straight or turn around in some of the heads of 30 foot+ models.

If you do the recommended preventive maintenance, you will be paying someone several thousands of dollars per year to keep things running reliably. The idea that this equals 10-20% of the new value seems way high to me. We pretty much do things by the book and that would place my annual PM budget at $30 to $60K per year. Maintenance including storage is more like $6,000 to $7,000 per year on my boat. This does not include fuel costs, depreciation or the loss of investment income from having spent the money on a depreciating asset. As someone else pointed out, boats are expensive toys. You can only enjoy them if their costs of operation are somewhat trivial in your personal overall financial situation. It's not good to be poor 12 months of the year for 11 or 12 weekends. At least with cars you can use them year round.
 
Another thought on boats in the Grand Rapids area. Go to boats.com and check listings within a reasonable to you distance from zip code 49503. You should look at more than just SRs as there are plenty of choices.
 
Thanks for all the advice. I looked at North Shore marina and they have a 2002 Wellcraft 38 for 100k. Seems like a steal. I really want a Ray but it's hard not to look at a deal like that.
 
Zooomer said:
Thanks for all the advice. I looked at North Shore marina and they have a 2002 Wellcraft 38 for 100k. Seems like a steal. I really want a Ray but it's hard not to look at a deal like that.
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If it looks too good to be true...

Maintenance: I budget 1% of new value per year. I'm not sure that percentage is a good way to go. Most of the maintenance is in the engine and drive system. For gas, once you get into 2 V-8's, you're maxed out. The most expensive system I can imagine would be 2 small V-8's with Bravo 3 I/O's - You'll find that in 30 footers (approx). You can get SR 390 DA's with V-8's and V-drives and spend less on maintenance, yet the boat is at least double in initial sales price. Either way, I would plan on about $3,000/year as a start.
 
I appreciate the help you guys gave me before. I've been looking steady and have things narrowed down. After speaking to some people, I'm back to wanting a Ray. Resale, expectations, maintenance, etc.

I also have been in and out of a few and think I want a 38'. 34 was too small, over 41 too big so right in there.

I'm looking at what appears to be a well maintained '99 380 sundancer for ~100k. It's older than I want but has been remodeled, care seems excellent and it has a bow thruster. I believe this model has the newer style hull that doesn't separate.

What I'm stuck on is the difference between a 38, 380, 390 and model years around that time. it's difficult to get info on what changed and such. Can someone point me in the direction to look?
 
In the time period you are looking at, the 380 is your best bet. It's an absolutely fabulous boat. With Sea Ray, yesterday's 34 footer is today's 37 footer. Sea Ray made the 360 and in 2006 redesigned the boat but kept the same hull and called it the 38.

You can get a great deal of basic Sea Ray model history here: http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/d48e9038#/d48e9038/1
 
If you live close to South Shore Marine stop by. I was just there looking at the boats. Great bunch of people. They have some of the best looking boats I have seen. They are very clean. They have a lot of used boats of all makes and sizes that you can check out.
 
went to searay web page looked up my boat.i could only find a sundancer for 1991 and mine has 250 weekender on the sides. it also has a few things differant than the sundancer.i looked at 90 &92 no help the hull says 91
 
Re: Need some help on which Ray model to get *update* bought one!

THanks for the help guys. I ended up buying a 1999 Sundancer 380 with 330 hours on it. Very clean. Happy with the boat so far but I got screwed on the transporting it by two different companies:(

Was out all memorial weekend, very happy with my choice.
 
Re: Need some help on which Ray model to get *update* bought one!

Zoomer,

I'm about to transport a boat from Florida to NY and am curious about what happened to you?
 
Boats Express AKA Specialty shipping quoted and told me they could handle it the same week. I gave them a $500 deposit and the next day when I called the story changed to them not being able to do any of the prep for delivery and they had no idea when they would be able to transport it. So I canceled with them and used another shipper. They then wouldn't answer there phones and refused to refund the $500 which they had a 'you have to wait 30 days' which then turned into 'we just F'd you out of $500'. So some piece of **** out there is sitting back with my $500 and gave me absolutely nothing in return.
 
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