| |
Bertram31.com General Bulletin Board
More on my experience
Posted By: STeveZ In Response To: I posed a similar question on 1-26-05 (STeveZ)
Date: Wednesday, 13 April 2005, at 1:09 p.m.
I had the broker and surveyor direct me to the best local Cummins dealer, whom I called to set up a survey. Well, a “performance analysis”, they repeatedly stressed that all they could do was tell me how the gauges indicated the engines were performing and how that compared to spec. No warranties given or implied.
The kid who set up the service was pretty green, again very non-committal and borderline confrontational. When asked how much a survey was, after giving me the first of several “performance analysis” speeches, he turned it around on me and said, “Well, what do you want?”. How the hell do I know? I want them to look at the engines, go for a ride and tell me if it’s OK to buy them, right? That kind of talk got; “It’s entirely up to you, we’ll do whatever you tell us”. Eventually I got these specifics; $85 /hour door-to-door plus mileage, and a typical performance analysis for a boat my size might cost up to $600. But of course that all depends on me.
On survey/sea trial day the mechanic drove to the wrong marina, twice, and showed up an hour late. He emulated his boss by lecturing me about the performance analysis and that all he could do is read the gauges (if they were to be trusted) and tell me how the readings compared to spec. Since the test ports had some corrosion we did not connect to them since shearing one off would have resulted in re-drilling and tapping the port, etc., etc.
The mechanic was a nice guy, knowledgeable, and offered some good advice. Aside from that he essentially did everything on Uncle Vic’s list in addition to confirming zero blow-back. He confirmed that the engines were running to spec and that they appeared sound (that of course was off the record).
He spent four hours on the boat and the bill was, amazingly, $600 even. Of course I had to argue it on general principle and they did knock off the hour spent driving to the wrong place.
In the end I needn’t have spent the money on the performance analysis but hindsight is 20/20. It was worth $500 to have a competent person check the engines out, offer his advice, and give his unofficial approval. My only problem with the whole experience was the Cummins dealer’s can’t-push-a-rope approach to dealing with customers which amounts to poor customer service masquerading as good customer service.
| |
Bertram31.com General Bulletin Board is maintained by Patrick McCrary with WebBBS 5.12.