Help Needed

[westhoffaj]

Hello all,

We have purchased a new 2022 Bennington s22 last year, it has a 200hp Mercury motor on it... We have had issues at half to full speed and turning left, it takes two hands and a lot of pressure, but when turning right I can use one finger and it turns with ease.

It has been to the dealer twice now, the first time they said that the steering pump was bad so the replaced it. Then the second time they just re-bled the hydraulic hoses to see if there was any air from the steering pump replacement.

Now there final solution was to just raise the trim in relative to the speed that we are traveling, but of course that didn't change anything.

We need help... has anyone had this issue before and what should we do next!!

Thanks.

 

[BigD]

Sounds like it still has air in the lines.

 

[BigKahuna]

We had an I/O with built in power steering for years so we never paid any attention to the steering because it was just like driving our cars. Our current boat has a Mercury 150 with hydraulic steering. It turns relatively easy but you know it's not power steering. The 1st time we skiied I did notice that I had a slightly harder time turning left at speed. I actually contacted our dealer and this is how they explained it to me........ It's harder to turn left at speed because you are fighting the way that the propeller is spinning. (Prop torque) Its easier to turn right because the prop is spinning clockwise the direction you are turning. Okay you mentioned a bad steering pump and bleeding the air out of the lines. Do you have power steering with that 200?!?

 

[Potomacbassin’]

Like BK said, sounds like torque steer since the issue is only to one side. If it's hard steering to both sides then it could be something like a pinched/crimped hydraulic line or pivot or ram needing grease. Do you have standard hydraulic or the powered assist? If the latter then something is clearly wrong.

A couple of things might help or at least test:

- Is the motor trimmed properly? Does the steering effort get better when you trim to a neutral or horizontal (parallel to the water when running) position? If the motor is trimmed too far down or up that puts increased pressure on the outboard so steering effort will increase

- Is the motor mounting height correct? If you're too low in the water that is a lot more water pushing on the lower unit and steering effort will increase

- Like BigD referenced, check all components of your steering system (or have the dealer do it again) from wheel to engine, including under the helm. While there will always be some torque steer in play, effort could be exacerbated by an improperly installed or maintained system. This seemingly contradicts my initial comment but I think it's a "both" situation. Hard turning to one side gives you a likely list of possibilities, while hard turning to both sides gives you another, but like a venn diagram the problem (steering system) could creates issues under both scenarios.

- Low on the list of possibilities is prop selection, what do you have?

In my experience dealers are wildcards - hard to tell whether they know what they're talking about or putting in the necessary effort to troubleshoot this. What to do next? I would be persistent and let them (and possibly Bennington) know that you're unhappy with your boating experience thus far. If possible ride in someone else's boat (friend) or go on a test ride with a dealer boat if they have one on the lot that can serve as a data point to the dealer. You could reach out to Sea Star directly and see if they can provide any help or tips.

A search online (lots of other boater forums like The Hull Truth) can also give you some helpful advice.

Good luck!