Toyota Epic

I've seen this boat in the local classifieds for about a week. I thought I'd read that it was an inboard. Anybody know anything about them?

[bradamerry]

I believe they are V-drives. I've seen one at the lake, but I didn't pay much attention to it. They the V-8 toyota motor.

[MarkP]

Knoxes

http://www.boats.com/boat-articles/N...pic/10971.html

[MarkP]

Looks like a cool boat

http://www.dallasboats4sale.com/pages/toyota.html

http://www.boats.com/sites/wolfardma...62601&mid=2447

[bradamerry]

Mark, I agree. Not bad looking, but I wonder how it performs?

[MarkP]

To read what boats.com has to say, its a runner??

I guess they've stopped making them?

Wouldn't maintenance and service be a nightmare?

It does look good, tho.

I looked at one when I bought my 230VRS Maristar in 2001. It was quite similar in just looking at it as the Maristar and with the Lexus motor I was sure it would be good. However it was closeout and Toyota was going out of that business so support would be gone shortly, and if you aren't selling the boats there is no dealer to go back to. So in the end I paid ~7k more for the Maristar (42k vs 35k for the Epic)...and haven't regretted that choice in anyway. It looked like a nice boat.

Wow. That could have been a costly mistake, Leroy

A new 70,000 sq. ft. factory with ski lake was opened on July 18 2001. The plan was to consolidate Marketing, Engineering and Manufacturing all under one roof. The boats had previously been manufactured by Maritech, a Florida boat company that makes high end Gambler bass boats. They even have a Dale Earnhardt signature model.

There were several factors that lead to Toyota's decision to pull the plug several months later. Early in the game, they had decided to limit production to 500 boats a year to keep tight control on quality. With a proposed nationwide network of 30 dealers, that is 16 boats PER YEAR per dealer. That is 1.38 boats per month. Even at five or six boats a month, many dealers decided to drop the line as it is much easier to sell something that you have on the lot than a picture from a brochure. This lead to slow sales. Toyota, used to selling cars in high volume, had no idea how to do business in the comp boat industry.

To compound things, some dealers began reporting problems with the Epic 21's. While lake testing, they found that some of the boats would "chine lock", or get locked into a turn that the driver could not steer out of. After much yelling and screaming and more dealers dropping the line, Toyota discovered that there was indeed a problem, a twist had developed in the mold for the Epic 21 foot boat. Apparently, it had been left out in the Florida sun for a period of time, boats made after that period had a twist. To avoid potential injury or death and inevitable litigation, Toyota made the right decision. They recalled all Epic 21's and replaced them with BRAND NEW BOATS! This was very costly, but it was the right decision. There were no incidents of the boats "flipping" or crashing as a result, you may read otherwise on the internet in some posts by dealers trying to sell their competing products. Of course, this problem made it even more difficult to sell boats. With the economy in freefall, things were not going well for Toyota Marine. Then, September 11. The resulting economic crash was the straw that broke the camels back.

Toyota pulled out in October 2001, they formally announced it around the New Year. All owners received letters stating that Toyota was committed to its customers, and would honor warrantees and provide parts and technical support for ten years from that date, Dec 31, 2001. They also said that they would start a quarterly newsletter for Toyota Epic owners to demonstrate this commitment. That has not happened yet,

source: http://www.epicmarine.com/history_of_epic_boats.htm

Didn't realize it was that bad. COuld have been the worst 7k I ever saved