J.D.

I picked up my boat used with 8 hours on it. Before I took delivery the dealer essentially did a full 10 hour service on it including an oil change. I am now at 13 hours and every time I start the boat I get the "maintenance required" message on my dash. I am not going to go back and pay for a full service again when it was just done. Is there any way to clear the message or do I have to take it to the dealer. They told me today they would charge me a half hour of labor just for that. I think that is ridiculous but won't have much choice if its my only option.

Also when it is due for service again I will be doing most of the work. I don't like other people touching things in my machines.

I just picked up a 2011 C180 SE with 8 hours on it. Already I am noticing some interesting differences when compared to my stern drive boat. I'm pretty sure these are just common to jet boats but I wanted to share my experience of it with others as a comparison of jet drive vs. stern drive. (For the record there is no real comparison between the two. Jet drive is amazing.)

I have been reading a bit about the cavitation issues a lot of these C180s seem to have. I have experienced a little bit of it but don't know if it is due to the environment in which I ride or an actual issue. I run in a section of the Columbia River where the Snake River meets that flows at a rate of anywhere from 3-6 knots. I get some of the cavitation when taking off to go upstream. I only experience a little bit then it bites and goes when only 2 people are on board. Yesterday I had 4 on board and it took it longer to bite. I was also going into a pretty decent head/side wind with the bimini up so I understand that I am certainly going to be slower out of the hole with those conditions. I will be taking the boat to a lake in a few weeks so I am curious to see the differences between our river and a lake. Even with some cavitation it still is out of the hole and on plane a lot faster than my stern drive boat could ever hope to be.

On the issue of wind. When going into any kind of head or head/side wind these boats react completely different than my stern drive boat does even with the bimini top down (I normally don't run with it up). I have to have the wheel pretty hard over just to maintain a straight line in my C180. With a stern drive boat it didn't have to compensate near as much since the lower unit and deeper draft help to anchor the vessel against the wind. It is not a big deal...just merely something I had not thought about before purchasing.

Feel free to post your experiences in these kind of situations or other situations you have noticed differences between your past stern drives and the direct drive jets.

Hey Everyone. My name is J.D. I just picked up my first Sea-Doo product in the form of a slightly used 2011 180 Challenger SE with only 8 hours on it. Took it out last weekend shortly after picking it up. I was nothing short of impressed. I will be taking it out again this weekend to watch the Tri-Cities Water Follies hydroplane races this weekend.