I decided to start a new post for everyone to list their worst buisness dealings with watercraft dealers. We don't neccessarily have to post the dealership's name, that would be illegal. I'll suggest we name the city and state.

My husband is way to nice and my brother-in-law is too passive. In this family, I'm the one with a mouth and the attitude big enough to get it into trouble. So I'll start the first post because I believe ya'll will commiserate.

A coupla weeks ago my husband goes to a dealership in Western NC and trades in his Yamaha XL1200 for a brand new off the showroom floor 2002 Yamaha GP1200R. The "rep" gushed over the fact that my husband brought his ski in IMMACULATE. Well the new ski has an empty gas tank and we all know you sell the ski with a full tank of gas. The "rep" says to my husband he's sorry but the gass station down the road is closed. Hubby says to the guy, "that's ok, just give me a gal. of Yamalube and we'll call it even."

The "rep" was like "Geez, I don't have any here. I'll continue with this line in a moment. During this time, my brother in law, God bless him, has found an XP he likes priced at 2k. The ski needed a new seat cover and needed to be cleaned (we're talking RANK) So my brother in law says "I'll buy it. You fix it and clean it and I'll come back in two weeks to get it" My husband said he could give his brother the gal of Yamalube then to bring home.

(Husband's insert: I was just disappointed with the fact that a full gas fill would cost more than the Yamalube and he should have parted with 1 gallon. It was just petty. The dealership was very nice except for that).

(back to wife's rant)
Well he went to get it today. My husband and I went to look at it since it's parked in my mom's garage. First off. The seat cover was not put on, it was folded up and put in the front storage area. Second, The ski was filthy. Oil and grease all over the outside and the inside stunk to high heaven. Made me sick to the stomache. Third, the wires and cables inside were dangling, some even unhooked. Fourth, the trailer is a third rate trailer with only ONE light that is in one piece and actually works. The wires for the trailer will need to be cut and the electric system rewired.

(Husband's insert: Dealer said trailer wasn't going to be that good since my bro was getting a 96XP with a new top end. BUT>>>> he said he would put the Hydroturf seat cover on and had 2 weeks to do it but didn't AND it was stuffed in the front storage compartment and that puts lines in the cover. Ski should have ATLEAST had the bilge clean with fresh water...looks like a stew of oil and sludge. Other than that...my bro got a good deal. I just don't want to slam too hard on this dealership, they could have done just a teeny wee bit more to make me recommend them to others as a GREAT bunch of people. Just a little bit would have went a LONG way.)

(back to wife's rant)

Fifth, the "rep" didn't give my brother in law the Yamalube to take to my husband. Told him that they had never agreed to that, but hey thanks for all the xtras that came on the XL (ride plate, intake, R & D valve covers, $125 ski cover)

Would you feel angry? My husband says I shouldn't put the fact that I am in the post, but like I said earlier: a mouth and enough attitude to back it up and get it into trouble!


Who else has a horror story?

[ 03-16-2003, 12:31 PM: Message edited by: Skysprite23 ]

Dealers....what a joke. Ever wonder why almost everyone on this forum does their own work? I have taken my ski to the dealer a couple of times for it to be summerized( greased and inspected ). The last time I took it was a couple of months ago. They handed it back to me and said it was good to go. Then I went to fercho's house and we got to looking over it and here is what was found: Pump liner had a hole in it from excessive cavitation, stator had a busted vane, and the worst thing of all...I had paid for a Solas 13/19 impeller about a year ago to have it installed and when we pulled it apart there was a 14/20 in there! Was I mad.

Lesson learned: Read, listen, ask questions, and learn. After that, for heavens sake do it your self and it will get done right!

well lets see in 2001 I purchased a brand new gpr and @ the time there was a special for either 500 factory cash back or 500 in yammy equipment I chose the 500 bucs in cash,I was told i would have a check from yammy in 3 weeks well 5 weeks later still no check so I call dealership and they say they will handle it,3 weeks later no check call dealership and they blame yammy usa so i call yammy usa and they say the dealership never sent rebate info to them so again call the dealership and they say they sent the info 3 weeks later I am still without my check so i call the dealer he says come on down and they will cut me a check for 500 I go down there and he tells me e is all out of checks,so i insist he pays me cash after an hour of arguments he finally hands me 500 bucs the very next day i recieve my yammy usa check for 500 bucs so i keep the cash and deposit the check and figure I just got one hella of a deal on my gpr.just goes to show you that if you keep after your dealer you can prevail in the end.

I purchased over 20,000.00 at my local dealer.My salesman was great! Service on the other hand sucked a$$.When the summer was over and about two to three months into winter (so he wasn't busy) I called for my 10hour service for both skis.The service manager asked for my cell number because they were suppose to be busy.I agreed. I waited exactly one week.I then called & spoke w/the same service manager.He said he was sorry, and then prommised he would call me back w/ a price for servicing my skis and then i gave him my # again.I spent big bucks in there and i will never return.Oh yeah, still no return call to this day after giving my cell # out twice.Too bad,because I have heard they do excellent work.And now because of this experience i will never ever return!!!!

I just like to say the dealer I’ve enjoyed doing business with the most is Riva. Although I didn’t by my latest ski from them because it was too far to drive, I always look forward to ordering parts from them over the internet. After doing so, I’m like a little kid waiting for the UPS truck to get here.

Like I tell my friends, “Good things come in Riva packages!!”

well riva crew,

I am willing to refund the dealers money, but the dealer needs to call me and ask me for it then I need to delay for atleast 12 weeks then make the dealer drive to my house and pick up a check but when he gets here I wont have my check book and after an hours worth of arguing I will hand the dealer 500 dollars cash,sorry but I went through **** getting what they said i would have in 3 weeks seems to me its the dealer that should be cautioned on the karma not me, JMO

OK, so we're out something like 14 weeks use of our GPR over the first 15-16 months of ownership, the ski goes to the best of 3 bad 5-star dealers. After six more weeks and being told the ski had no problems and that we needed to pay a few hundred for their time, I had to take time off to test, diagnose, and repair the ski myself. After having purchased the extended warranty so I wouldn't have to put time or resources into yet another PWC.

Their work . . hah . . consisted of telling us there was nothing wrong with it and putting new plugs in it when we gave them a 2 page written set of instructions that indicated we had just changed the plugs. By doing the work myself and demonstrating the defective parts they agreed not to charge for their bogus "work". Of course, I'm also out about a grand in spent personal time off, parts, long distance calls, and hundreds and hundreds of miles in unnecessary trips to deal with their incompetence.

[At least the ski has run for about 40 trouble-free hours since doing the work myself. That is roughly the same amount of time as it ran from new to its first major problem!]

So, while trying to keep the best of these 3 bad relationships alive, I threw the dealer the opportunity to work on our SJ.

It was an R&R for an exhaust manifold with a broken bolt. The bill came to somewhere close to another grand. We settled on a few hundred. When I got the ski home I found the tank vent line connected to the return location on the tank. The carb return line was laying in the hull, which was full of gas and water. But hey, they said it ran great when they gave it an on-water test ride.

I won't even go over the lies, deceit, damage, and incompetence created by the other 2 dealers.

2 wrongs certainly don't make a right . . . neither do many more. The right and moral thing would be for Yamaha to step in and pay some restitution for our trouble with their dealer network we're required to use with the extended warranty. Instead, they make up excuses to not cover parts that fail from bad designs over several model years.

Heck, the guy I bought the GPR from says their large multi-location and multi-brand powersports management team decided not to expand another Yamaha PWC franchise because Yamaha won't boot the bad dealer in the area and the PWC product problems Yamaha now suffers have made selling traditional boats easier and more profitable to focus on instead.

If Riva or other good dealers could manage a chain of national dealer/service centers they could make a fortune and the industry might have something going for it.

just goes to show you what kind of person gpsd is, i hope he sleeps good at night Knowing he took 500.00 from the dealers family. I guess he dont understand how it affects everybody

"what a loser"

new memeber with 10 posts calling me a loser,welcome to the forum!!


riva I get it. I just dont agree with you,sorry

I see a half empty glass and you see a half full one just different opinions

I agree with waverunner greg riva is bye far the best dealer in the usa IMO, 90% of my mods on my gpr has been purchased from riva. any chance of a rebate here riva crew?

GPSD, it comes down to what's right and wrong. Simple for most people to see, not for some. If the dealer deliberately did this same thing to you, I guarantee you would be the first one jumping up and down calling him every low life crook in the book. It's funny how it's different when the shoe is on the other foot isn't it.

As Riva commented,two wrongs don't make a right!

let me shed a little more light here, my sales person would sit on the phone and tell me he would call yammy usa and straighten this out I even gave the salesman the name of my rep that i had spoken to and her phone # I would call the rep the next day and she would tell me that he never called her she even called the dealership herself and they told her that they had lost my paper work for the rebate and that they would redo the paper work and fax it that day which they didnt do this went on for many many weeks I even spoke to the sales manager 4 times begging him to send the paper work and ofcourse I always got the "we are very busy and your paper work is in the process of being sent" story for 2 months now the yammy usa rep was @ her wits end the salesmanager wouldnt take any of my calls anylonger and the salesman atleast 2 times tried to deny the fact that there was any rebate offer I actually had to fax a copy of the deal to them to refresh his memory of the factory rebate not to mention I spent $600.00 of my hard earned money to replace the faulty power valves with rivas billeted valves and 200.00 dollars to buy a new impeller because the cavitation burns on my stock prop got so bad that I was losing top end and holeshot I recently had to replace the impeller duct because the cavitation burns in the fins were terrible ofcourse they were caused bye the bad design of the pump from the factory
If I had known what I know today back then I would have walked into a kawasaki dealership and not a yamaha dealership dont get me wrong I love my gpr now but there is more than just 2 wrongs here there are atleast 2 wrongs from factory yammy and poor design of pvs and pump and atleast 10 wrongs from the dealership on them lieing and being to busy to help out someone that payed $7,800.00 before rebate for an 01 gpr

riva crew I get it I really got it.

Ok folks, I didn't intentnd this thread to be a fight session, I just wanted you to post bad trips to the dealers so others could learn from that same thing. You sound like children here, squabbling over a moral issue. Now listen, each of us have our own morals, some more than others. Accept it, deny it, forgive it, hate it, I don't care, just get over it.

Now post "warnings" to the board, I meant this thread to illustrate different tactics and bolness from the dealers so others are wise to the trick and can play the game a little differently for whatever the reason, you insist on lashing out at each other. Behave!

Skysprite23,
I'll get off my moral soap box now, but don't expect to hear only the customers side. We're forum members too, only our dealership horror story is from the other side of the desk! Just ask any service or sales manager.

I wasn't saying the dealers can't defend themselves, I just feel that there is enough fighting going on that we don't need xtra here.

I started this thread to help people see the different tactics and lies that some dealerships use and practice so that others won't fall for the same deal.
This is pretty much a heads up thread not quite the rant page it's turned into. I hadn't intended that. Sorry