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Old 07-23-2020, 04:16 AM
  #7  
Phins2right
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Originally Posted by Big E 757 View Post
This is a question for you boat owners out there. My brother in law and I are looking into a very used boat. We have a family property on a river in Illinois and want something for pulling the kids skiing and tubing. Right now all we have is a pontoon boat (my parents) and a sea doo wave runner. Every boat we’ve liked on boat trader the last few days has been bought before we could get to it.

Anyway, there is a 1998 Sea Ray 190 Bow Rider for sale that looks decent. My bro-in-law said at one time Sea Rays didn’t have a very good reputation, and I was thinking it was Bayliner that had the bad reputation back in the 80’s and 90’s. I’m not asking for anyone to solve our dispute, but does anyone have any good reliability information about late 90’s early 00’s Sea Ray boats? It has a 5.0 liter, mercruiser EFI engine and looks well taken care of from the pictures. They’re asking over $12K which is high according to NADA. I don’t want to waste anyone’s time negotiating the right price though, if I’m setting myself up for a headache.

Does anyone have any experience with 20ish year old Sea Ray boats, if so I’d love to hear it. Feel free to PM me or post here. Thanks.
Bayliner's have the just derserved bad rep, not Sea Ray.

I'm guessing it is and I/O boat. If so, when's the last time the bellows was serviced/changed?

They tend to have wet transoms. Sea Rays are cored boats (fiberglass over some material - sea rays are glass over wood), they tend to rot from the inside out - especially their older I/O boats like what you're looking at.

Speaking of rot, the stringers - the things that run fore and aft along the hull (you'll see them looking thru a hatch or 2 below decks) - usually your engine will be mounted to them. Tend to rot as well on older sea rays.

12K is too much for that boat. NADA values for boats are just WAG.

If you're serious about it, low ball the offer and get it surveyed by a SAMS certified pro.
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