Superior Boat Repair & Sales

Review: I took my boat for a tune up upon doing tune up I was informed that the out drive gasket needed to be replaced so I had them do the repairs. I took the boat out multiple times to the river to test drive one time out the boat lost all foward gear had to drive back to the dock half a mile. Took boat back to repair shop they informed me while put the drive back together they must have not tightened a piece down in the drive they repaired it. I took the boat back to test and the boat lost power. They informed me the carb needed to be rebuilt I approved the repair took the boat for test again it was still doing the same thing the repair shop came to river tested and said the carb need to be repaired again so they took it back to the shop. They took it out the river tested said it ran good I picked it up again to test after 30 min started doing same thing at this point the shop they wouldn't work on the boat again and told me to take another shop and they would pay for anything wrong they did to it. Since then I had taken to the other repair shop and they had found missing parts on the drive and drive cables and the wrong drive gasket was used. Superior has told me they are not responsible and is not going to pay for the repairs.Desired Settlement: I would like them to pay for the replacement of the gasket , all missing parts on drive and the drive cable and the labor cost

Business

Response:

This letter is in response to the complaint filed against our business by [redacted] and her boyfriend, [redacted]. The complaint, #[redacted], was received by your office on June 4th, 2014. We just received this information today, via our phone conversation, because your company had mailed the complaint letter to our old 2012 physical address, and to an old global SBC e-mail address, that we no longer use. We write this only so that all parties concerned will understand why we did not respond to this complaint until today. Today is the first day we were made aware of a complaint filed and we are responding immediately!

In March of this year, we met [redacted] and [redacted] at the Sacramento Boat Show. After we spent time with them, they verbally committed to buying a new boat from our dealership and [redacted] signed a purchase contract. They preceded to come into our boat dealership on multiple occasions, spending many hours with us, continuing to promise us every time that they were buying a new boat from us. We spent hours with them in person, on the phone, via voice mail messages, e-mails, text messages etc… We went out of our way to give them the best possible customer service and to be as kind to them as we possibly could, like we do with all of our valued customers!

At the same time, we agreed to repair their thirty-three year old boat. We normally do not repair any boats that are more than twenty-five years old, because we have a really hard time finding parts for them and because often times we have found that they continue to have more and more problems, after we repair a part of the boat that a customer has asked us to repair initially. Frankly, when boats sit for a long time, without being used, they commonly have many repair issues! That was true in this case. The only reason we agreed to help [redacted] and [redacted], is because they had given us their word that they were purchasing a new boat from us. We went above and beyond to fix their boat as they requested, but could only do what they were willing to pay for. After servicing their boat in our service department, we told them and we have it in writing, that we could not repair the problems that they were telling us were occurring, without taking the boat to the lake to water test the boat and detect the problem. We were not able to duplicate the problems in our service department. We charge each customer for our time and labor, when we have to spend several hours taking the boat to the water. We have to charge them, because we have to pay our mechanics for their time. [redacted] and [redacted] told us on several occasions that they did NOT want to pay us to water test their boat, but they called us multiple times from the river saying they were broken down or that the boat wasn’t running right, again. We tried diligently to repair their boat, but we could only do what they were willing to pay for. We even went to the river with a mechanic to help them, when they were stranded and we DID NOT charge them. As it became very apparent that they were not going to buy a boat from us, we still did everything we could to help them get their boat running!

Every problem they had with their boat, we addressed! The boat would not go into forward gear, we repaired that at no cost! The loss of power was due to the carburetor being old and dirty, so it wasn’t functioning correctly. We had the [redacted] in Citrus Heights repair it, however, they did not fix it correctly, so our mechanics rebuilt it and we did that second carb fix at no charge to the customer! After the second rebuild and complaint from [redacted] and [redacted] that the boat was not running correctly, we told them that it would be best if they took the boat to [redacted], near us in Rancho Cordova. [redacted] prefers to work on older boats! They like to send their customers with newer boats to us!

[redacted], the co-owner of Superior Boat Repair & Sales, personally went over to [redacted] twice to review the mechanical problems that [redacted]’s boat was having. [redacted] found that the exhaust manifold was leaking and that was one of the reasons the boat was having running issues! They told us that that was because of the age of the boat and not the fault of our mechanics. [redacted] also found that the shift cable was damaged, which they told us was from wear and age. Again, we were not to blame and should not be held responsible for the cost to repair this. They did find a mistake that our mechanic made, the wrong size out-drive gasket was installed and one out of four bolts was missing on the outdrive cover. We immediately told [redacted] to let [redacted] and [redacted] know that we would cover the cost to remedy this problem, which they told us was $70.00, and we did. We mailed [redacted] a $70.00 check that week. [redacted] informed us that that problem would not have been why the boat was having the running issues, either. Working on that area of the boat would not have caused the exhaust manifold to leak or the shift cable damage! [redacted] confirmed with us today that all the problems they repaired on the customers boat were caused by broken and worn parts, parts that were in that condition before the boat ever came to Superior Boat Repair & Sales. We repaired and replaced many things on the boat, but many more needed to be done, after-all , it’s a thirty-three year old boat!

After doing our due diligence, we realized that we were not able to repair every new problem that the old boat was having, if they were not willing to pay us for our time and labor! The boat kept having more and more problems occur, as they tried to use it. The customer told us that the boat had sat for two years and had not been run. Any boat that sits that long has problems! They expected us to pay for many of these problems, which is not our responsibility.

Superior Boat Repair & Sales has over three thousand service customers. We strive in providing the best possible service for our customers and that is one of the reasons why this year, Boating Industry Magazine has chosen us as one of the Top 100 Boat Dealers in North America after our first year as a dealer. Although we really try, we of course know that we can’t please everyone. In this case, we did all the customer would pay us to do and then some!

Business

Response:

After re-reading my letter to you, I realized that I had typed that the boat is thirty-three years old. It is only thirty-one years old. My mistake! I just wanted to let you know.