>>853533>>853534I get maybe an hour's riding time out of my ski before it needs a new part or some laughable amount of labor to fix it. But it is from 1995, and it was made in canada with an austrian motor. To contrast this, my yamaha superjet is a damn tank.
But newer skis (and boats) lose lots of value the second you take delivery. Think of it like a car's instant depreciation, and now multiply that by 10%. That is how marine vehicles work. Only buy new if you want the thing for life, or have money flowing out of your ass.
But newer boats and skis, if maintained religiously, will not break on you. The most likely thing to go wrong is the in-tank fuel pump. I know your gauge says 1/4 tank. I know you visually verify that the tank is 1/4 full. But this is actually empty for these pumps. Running with less than this much fuel puts you in a shitty spot to get anally reamed by the boat gods, because these pumps require immersion in fuel to keep them cool. Pretty fucked, right?
It will cost over a thousand dollars a season just to service it (fluids, wearable parts, labor is normally $100+/hour), and most of the country gets cold enough to require winterization of the boat (sometimes this is really easy like in california where all you need to do is cover it like normal and drain the block, sometimes it is hard like in canada where you really should shrinkwrap the fucking thing even if it is stored inside, varies by boat and by state).
Oh, and if you want to take your shit in salt water, you need to hose it down and flush the motor every time. If you do not, your boat will try to kill you. I will also try to kill you. Salt + metal = bad time.
