Cracked tower - low hours UPDATE

[Overdraft]

You might remember this thread about my cracked tower.

http://www.mastercraft.com/teamtalk/...ad.php?t=50529

The update is a $ 2,400.00 bill from the dealer to me to repair the tower. I am not pinning this one on the dealer as he is not responsible for the engineering and design of this tower - yet none the less reduced the hours on the file and passed on the parts at his apparant cost.

A tower cracked both sides on a SKI BOAT!? Come on...MC is fortunate they don't have a serious injury or death on their corporate conscience for a tower landing on one of my passengers - scares the heck out of me actually. Still waiting for a plausable theory as to why this happened on a 100 hour boat that spends the entire summer on a lift, is dealer maintained and travels on a trailer to and from the cottage on a paved roads once a year.


Brand loyalty - sorry not anymore.

[mikeg205]

repair tower? any word from MC? Can it be safely repaired? or are they replacing the broken parts...

[Overdraft]

As crazy as it sounds - they sold me the parts $ 1,700.00....balance was for labour from the dealer. The dealer tells me he didn't mark-up the parts. This is plain wrong - in my opinion of course.

[mikeg205]

That crack could have really hurt someone.... good no one got hurt. Anyway it's boat right -- Bring Out Another Thousand...

[Aric'sX15]

well not to stir the pot, but doesnt it have a warning on the tower to not tow tubes from it?

[scott023]

I can see the issues from both sides... the boat is 5+ years old, and there's no telling what was pulled from the tower, of if there was ever any monkey business that caused the tower to crack.
That being said, if it was my boat, I'd be choked that I had to cover the cost with so few hours on it. But then again, I have never pulled a tube from the tower either.

[madcityskier]

Probably best not to start all of this again. Suffice to say I would be frustrated as well, yet I feel there is more to this than just a sudden crack with no previous signs of a concern.

[Cloaked]

Without seeing the tower and weld joint, I will say this from first look; the skewed angle of the weld joint on the inside of the angle could possibly have had undercut at the toe of the weld. Thus a stress riser point, thus a weak point for material failure from cyclic stress. Merely a guess from a limited view but I can clearly see the opportunity for undercut (a weld defect that impacts the base material) to have a part in the origin of the crack (on relatively thin wall material allowing a crack to begin).

Take it or leave it....

I say manufacturing weld defect....and I also say KAKA to the price that guy gouged you... What exactly did they do to repair the issue? Cut out the cracked component and reweld in a new piece? Repair the crack with filler material (I hope not)? I am not making light of the cost or scenario, I'm curious as to the process of repair to justify some $2,400. Heck, a new tower is just around $3K, no?

$0.02

[mikeg205]

Originally Posted by Cloaked

Without seeing the tower and weld joint, I will say this from first look; the skewed angle of the weld joint on the inside of the angle could possibly have had undercut at the toe of the weld. Thus a stress riser point, thus a weak point for material failure from cyclic stress. Merely a guess from a limited view but I can clearly see the opportunity for undercut (a weld defect that impacts the base material) to have a part in the origin of the crack (on relatively thin wall material allowing a crack to begin).

Take it or leave it....

I say manufacturing weld defect....

$0.02

You stay at a holiday inn last night cloaked?

[Cloaked]

Originally Posted by mikeg205

You stay at a holiday inn last night cloaked?

lol.. .... I snagged a room in the Holiday Inn Express....