Lake Lewisville Boat Service Recommendations

kanda4

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Frisco, TX
Okay, so in a slip on a boat lift getting ready for winter in my first new tritoon. Coming up on my 20 hour service and will need to address changing the oil in the upper and lower unit. Problem is I don't have a trailer or a way to take the boat out of the water unless I hire one of the nice dealers to pick it up and take it to their shop for service and repair. Kind of wishing I had bought one now but still would have the problem of paying to store it and no way to haul it anywhere anyway. Anyone out there on Lewisville in a similar situation? Curious to hear what you do to address service and repair issues and whom you might use or recommend. I would really like to take it out of the water for just a week or two and change the oil myself and work on the algae build up on the toons. Any thoughts out there?
 
Can't help you with the area but why don't you rent a trailer?
 
Since I bought mine from Phil Dill, they loan me a trailer to bring it in for service. I have also heard marine max will come service your boat at the slip.
 
In your area I think you have two choices:  Jim Whittle or his next door neighbor Phil Dill.  Whittle was once the dealer for this area but lost this last year due to a national deal being done with Phil (so I heard).  Both have good reputations.
 
Thanks guys. I purchased my Benny from Phil Dill and have gotten off to a rocky start with them so far (not returning emails, phone-calls, poor follow up, etc.). Finally reached someone in service dept. and was quoted several hundred dollars to change the oil in the upper and lower ( plus "inspect" other stuff) and $300 to haul it back and forth. Sensed I was being taken out back and taught a lesson, so never called the guy back. They never offered to loan me a trailer either-imagine that. Would be great if you could let me know who you dealt with. Marine max was very responsive but wanted over $500 to change the oil by the time it was all done (Nobody changes the oil in the lower unit on the lake from what I have found so far). They would've had to haul boat out of the water and change the oil at the ramp. Slalom shop was nice, but not able to service Yamaha motors yet.

Now I am to the point of simply putting some stabil in the fuel tank and letting it sit there for a few months until I can figure something else out. Ideally I would love to find someone with a trailer that has slip on Lewisville and borrowing or renting from them and doing all of the maintenance myself (don't have a clue what I'm doing-just going by the owners manual I can seem to print). Seems like I have been taught a few lessons from my dealer after all. Very frustrated and not happy with my purchase so far. Love the boat-hate the situation I put myself in.
 
Alan,

 Sorry to hear about you situation, BUT, welcome to boat ownership. It's not a cheap hobby. If you want an idea of what I pay, and I'm probably one of the cheaper scenarios, on a yearly basis, $150 spring drop fee (I don't have trailer either), $650 dock fee (apr 1-Oct 31), $150 pull fee, $150 maintainence, $500 winter indoor storage(no trailers, so I'd still have to store that elsewhere).

This does not include my payments or insurance, so throw another $2900 or so on there .......

With that being said, when I factor in the cost of a trailer ($2000), somewhere to store the trailer ($40 month/$480 yr), it just made sense for me to wait and pay the dealer the fees.

The storage fee alone offsets my pulling and servicing fee. Someday I will get a trailer, but not till we decide to take the boat elsewhere.

Personally, I say just let them service it. Eespecially with it being new boat, and you stating your not sure what you are doing, I'd at least let them handle the initial servicing.

Also did you "ask" about borrowing the trailer .... business 101 .... why offer it if they can make money .... they are a business. BUT it never hurts to ask. Also, maybe talk to your salesman and see if he has any "pull".

Time to bite the bullet .... Just my 2 cents ...... :)
 
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Alan,

Did you ever end up finding someone to do the service?  I'm curious because we are in a similar situation with the dealerships.  We bought our 2012 Benny from Jerry Whittle and had a good experience.  We keep getting lemon radios, so it had been back to Whittle for service last year and we had no issues.  Radio #3 crapped out at the end of last season, so when spring rolled around we needed to take it back (again), and learned that Whittle now carries the "Excursion" pontoons, and that Phil Dill is now our dealer of uh"choice" :wacko:    We trailer our boat and are actually lucky enough to be able to store it behind the fence in our yard, so getting it to them is not an issue, but they had it for almost 3 1/2 weeks while giving us the runaround. "oh, we haven't looked at it yet", "oh there's a problem with the radio?".......sigh.......But nonetheless they did fix the issues we had and we eventually got it back in time to hit the lake on Memorial Day weekend.  As far as general maintenance, they quoted us just under $400 for the oil change, but thank god for hubby and you-tube.....$100 later we were good to go! 

On which lake do you keep your boat?  I see you are in Frisco, we are next door in McKinney  B)
 
Hi neighbor! I keep my boat at Cottonwood Creek Marina on Lake Lewisville (Little Elm). With the low lake levels, I am a little hesitant to take it out too much. It's a little scary out there if you're not careful you'll get stuck somewhere. Even so, it's slow going in a lot a places. I'm hoping that changes soon, as it kind of stinks having a nice new boat and paying to have it sit there (in my situation with no trailer and all). As far as service, still very few hours and no luck with service yet. Everyone I called said they would change the upper oil in my slip, but the boat would have to come out of the water to change the lower oil. So, I'm back to hauling it back to a dealer and messing around with them again (oh no!). If I ever get it out of the water I will definitely be trying to change the oil myself, as from what I've heard on this site, it's not too difficult. What kind of Benny do you guys have?
 
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