How To Buy A Boat / Things to Look For To Save You Money

warning I'm talking fast to try to make this video as short as possible how's it going today I want to talk about some of the things you need to not overlook when you're buying a boat so you need to ask a lot of questions make sure you're comfortable with the buyer and some of these things are pretty major so if you're buying it depends on what kind of boat you're buying maybe you're buying like a bass boat with an outboard motor first thing I do is Google the brand of the boat in the motor are they good so murky mercury you know Volvo they're great inboard motors Honda Yamaha Suzuki Evinrude Johnson they're great outboard motors you know but I googled a brand new boat so this is a chaparral and for a lake boat these are some of the best bullets you can buy they're up there they're just maybe even past Sea Ray but below Boston Whaler so some of the things I asked first when I call the buyer do you have a clean title for trailer and the boat you know so what I do is I try to ask a lot of questions on the phone because sometimes they won't reply back to you because they're afraid they know you're going to be detailed when you're buying this boat and they know they're not going to get something past you so I think that's always great when I ask all these questions and then they never respond back to me because you know they want to sell the boat they just want to sell to somebody they can kind of you know F over so let me go over a bunch of stuff go through the trailer inside motor low rent all that stuff and just kind of say you know here's what you need to look at now it all varies on what kind of price you're spending now if you're going to spend ten thousand dollars you might want to bring it into a shop and have them do a compression Jack you know compression gauge is about a hundred dollars but that way it'll save you a lot of money I would always do a compression check or at least run the boat in the lake for at least fifteen minutes so here we go I'm gonna start with the lower end okay when I'm inspecting a lower run first thing I kind of check is the sched so it's a scag damaged now when I bought this boat the first thing I bought it from hit it on the ground back in the driveway so I had to do a full repair I was aware of that and they had the piece so that means I know they didn't lose in the lake on full blast but I do I wouldn't worry so much about the paint wear because I had the motor up kind of in a shallow water and it was rubbing in some sand so the paint wear can't happen you just don't want to have a bunch of Nicks or damage then you check the prop because these can be a couple hundred dollars up to five hundred dollars even more maybe so check the prop does it have any damage I've put a new prop on here because I wanted a four-blade prop for efficiency in better cornering and better holeshot then you want to check your trim make sure there's nothing leaking here trim fluid lines down here and make sure there's nothing leaking here and make sure your trim when you start the book goes up and down and stays there also make sure you check your bellows the boots inside here you don't want to see any cracking that can get expensive too there was probably three bellows make sure the wires aren't wore through this is just visual of stuff in a little bit I'll talk about what you want to do when it's run so you just want to really get in here and look so like here's the bellow these rubber boots here you want to make sure you don't have any leaking or cracks so that's very important you can kind of see all the way through here when it's up you can see better and make sure your transom Waddell is good like on an outboard boat people want to shake the motor and make sure you check the integrity of the transom this is probably the most important part to have a strong transom on your bottom of your boat then you want to check the bottom of your boat so you go underneath here and while you're down here check out your trailer so you want to check out your rollers your bunk everything there's a couple minor scratches on here nothing through the fiberglass which is great there's nothing wrong with a couple minor scratches on the bottom your boat because when people beach it in the sand I never beat my boat in the sin I know better so I was back in throw an anchor on both sides and just stay about this far off of the shore I just never do that and make sure your trailer tires are good make sure there's no leaking on the grease here make sure you might have a spare tire these can be a hundred and fifty dollars or more or maybe if you're lucky a hundred so make sure you all these things kind of add up if you need tires and you don't even have a spare tire you might be four hundred and fifty five hundred dollars in before you even get to use it on the lake make sure your trailer wires lights work trailer lights work also make sure your rollers are good and make sure your bunks are decent all these things add up let's go inside the boat make sure you don't have you know any major fiberglass damage you know some spider cracking is not awful it's just like the gelcoat cracking because the fiberglass is kind of flexible so just kind of walk over the boat make sure everything's good you know I broke this latch right here make sure you have latches that have good handles and your hinges are good I mean some of these things you can just tighten up and it doesn't take that long I guess another thing I ask for right away when I call is I ask if they have covers so I like having snap covers because if I Mahmud's Lake at my cabin I want to snap cover it you know that way I don't need the trailer cover but make sure you have a cover all those things add up in a bimini top it's super important to have a bimini top especially about the kid so there's my bimini top and I even have a rain cover for this one but that stuff is really important when it's 95 degrees out and sunny and you're trying to hang on have a good time you can put that up and have some shade Bimini tops can be 300 to thousands of dollars so that can save you some money also check to see if your ladder works good it's dirty in here what's that's common because the water doesn't drain out that well but that's the smallest issue of everything what is super important is walk around every section of the floor to make sure there's no rotten socks or rotten or soft spots just make sure you step everywhere I'm like almost 300 pounds I want to check everything out on the floor because if you have to do a floor you're into some serious work and it's harder to sell so motor floor and trailer are probably the most important things and depending on what kind of condition and how much money you're spending make sure your interiors good really look over the interior for rips tears and stains what else is super important make sure your drive and your shift cables aren't very stiff because you don't want shift cables or your shift cable to be stiff or any of the cables in here because that can add up check all your accessories your bilge pump and check your navigation lights that's up make sure it steers easily this one has power steering so that that'll be easier when I'm steering I've ridden the boat I know that it steers nicely make sure you check all your gauges you want to make sure your battery gauge works your fuel gauge your speedo your rpm gauge your trim your oil pressure gauge in the Tempe er motor mixed all this stuff matters what some people overlook is testing the see how sturdy your windshield is sometimes these boats can get beat up pretty bad and your windshield can be super loose and like I said some of the stuff doesn't matter to everybody because you're not spending let's say ten grand and a boat where I'm gonna be super picky sometimes you can spend fifteen hundred on the boat a thousand two thousand some of these things you have to overlook because you only buy in a two thousand dollar boat so keep that in mind when you're buying a boat you know what I like to do is make sure when I buy a boat it's I'm gonna be super picky that way I can spend the money on some accessories stuff like I want to put a new stereo one with bluetooth new speakers which I've done LED lights underneath here so it looks cool at night so I like to spend money doing that stuff rather than you know doing repairs right away every time when I buy a boat I put a brand new battery in it and a brand new radio but make sure your battery connections don't look too corroded here's your Tilden trim pump you want to make sure that doesn't leak having that leak can be a pain in the butt or your solenoids make sure your trim goes up and down you know here's your lower end shift cable that can be a $600 fix easy so make sure when the boat shifts it's smooth and make sure it doesn't die when you ship you know just kind of overall look at your motor the best thing to do is do a compression check but sometimes you can't always do that I would highly recommend you make sure you start this boat run it for at least ten minutes if you're not going to take it on the link and make sure it's not gonna overheat and the lower end is pumping out a good amount of water if it's not pumping out a good amount of water you're gonna need to impeller right away which I recommend anyways but you want to make sure there's no inside damage like I had a did a video of boating nightmare and everything inside was kind of melted down because the previous owner overheated it and it wasn't pumping all the water all the way I went against my better instincts and still bought the boat what do you do you know obviously unlike buying inboard boats compared to upward things very like you're not gonna need a blower motor which make sure it works for an outboard boat but they can be fifty dollars to replace that plus the time and labor I'm gonna take out the whole back bench on this bilge pump I think is super important battery gauge temp gauge I think that stuff's super important I don't think the speedo gage is that important I put a deaf binder on here that's going to have the speed anyways but rpms that can be important so in lights I like having lights a horn not super important I think by law you need one here in Minnesota but you can buy a little can and so some of these things I think are kind of minor but the lights like I said very important make sure you check that stuff out and make sure after you're running bold for ten minutes I prefer taking it to the lake check the oil to make sure there's no milkiness in the oil and what else to make sure make sure it plays right my buddy spent $5,000 on the boat and every time you when I'm playing it would be trying to go fast it slams up and down in the front so no matter how hard he fought he put the trim down it wouldn't plane right that's super annoying you can't even go over 30 miles an hour then you're either active or slow or just kind of slowly cruise that's one thing you want to make sure to I I've never seen that happen but it happened to my buddy so make sure you check that out you know along with checking on the gauges check the radio just because if you don't want to spend money in a radio make sure the radio works because otherwise you're going to spend a hundred dollars plus maybe install depending how much work you plan on doing to install the radio like I said I enjoy just having a new radio so I don't mind putting a radio in and like I was talking about stress cracks they're not the worst thing to have it's just the gelcoat usually unless you find major damage underneath that is alarming so I wouldn't necessarily buy I mean depends on how much money you're spending again we're gonna spend $10,000 you want to make sure you have a great boat so I have some stress crashing up here but it's not structural I don't know if you can see it because a Blanche hit right here you know you know kind of bringing that in that's an that's small compared to you know the big picture basically one other thing that I check on kind of every boat I've ever bought is open like the hatches up and check the hinges sometimes it can be so loose from blowing off the you got you got to replace all the hinges sometimes they can just be tightened and that's just common about things shake around so just tighten your hinges you know and that's kind of something I you don't want to overlook either just check the stuff out I mean it's not the end of the world if you have some loose hinges that's that's a big deal on that and you know check underneath the steering column too and in the back of the boat you don't want a bunch of rat's nest of wiring you know when they wired these boats knew it was probably pretty clean so you'll be able to tell if somebody was in there messing around not wiring things back together correctly that's that's kind of important but sometimes everything will work and you just gonna have to go with it like I said it's all the price you're gonna spend as I was covering the boat up I thought of some other things when you're buying a boat make sure it has lifejackets maybe some ropes some bumpers depending on what size of boat you have sometimes an anchor can be $100 bolt ropes can be $15 each maybe so check that stuff out life jackets you can get the orange ones for five bucks but all this stuff adds up so let's say you need trailer tires maybe lights on it lifejacket accessories and there's a couple of things already or maybe at $500 before you even get on the lake so just make sure you have some of these things those are kind of minor things I have more connect also so sometimes you can't open the lower end up or unless you bring it in the shop which if you're spending $10,000 in a boat maybe pay mechanic 100 100 bucks $150 to open the lower end up and see what's going on in there you know just make sure you take your time when you're buying a boat really look at it and see what it is so like get a list going damage on the bottom floor is weak you know stuff like that if it doesn't add up to too much maybe that's both for you like I said if you're spending $2,000 you can have everything you're gonna have rips in the interior probably you're gonna have Sun fade you might need tires in the trailer that's what it is voting is not cheap just remember that it's bust out another thousand or I call it boat with two T's bust out another two thousand okay sorry I talked fast in this video I'm trying to make this video as short as possible so again when I call the buyer I say do you have covers for it snap covers how are the trailer tires do the lights work is it pumping water how is the prop does the engine have compression say you mean even tell him you're gonna check the compression because if he doesn't answer you back he probably has bad compression he doesn't want you to see that I always recommend like testing a boat get the water get the boat in the lake make sure there's no leaks water is not rushing in you know leaking from the motor any of that stuff is extremely important because you could buy a $2,000 boat first day need $2,000 and what the engine work you don't want that so if I always tell the bye you're gonna spend an hour there it might take a half hour just make sure you just kind of glance over it kind of everything I said sometimes you're gonna pick and choose and what you're you know like this bulb was extremely oxidized I polished it for three hours now look shiny so some things you're able to fix on your own if you're handy you can do a lot of this stuff but boating is extremely expensive I have a video of my boating nightmare what that's exactly where I bought this boat and I to put twenty five hundred dollars into it within four hours of using it so learn from my mistake check these things over look for signs of overheating and hopefully you have a great time out in the lake thank you very much for watching the video check out my boating nightmare video or any of my other repair videos hopefully they can help you out thank you very much have a good day [Music]

Channel: Chris Boats

Views: 579,193

Keywords: how to buy a boat, boat, used boat, in board boat, out board boat, boating, buying, floor, motor, mercruiser, volvo, omc, suzuki, yamaha, johnson, evenrude, honda, fibergalss, HOW TO, buy a boat, mistakes, lower end

Id: _pzh3btycO0

Length: 14min 12sec (852 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 12 2019