Upgrading FINALLY!!

[Trim]

That makes sense jkust. Thanks for the good info. I was actually surprised one of our local dealers was helping me out because it was to no benefit to him what so ever.

 

[Maclin]

Well, be as ready NOT to buy as buy, jmho Something better always comes along.

And I agree with jkust on the "average interior", just don't. Unless it is one spot that they dropped something on it and it tore or similar, and the rest is immaculate. A Cobalt should look new for a long time.

Here are some examples of what a 2002 higher-end model boat interior (Bryant 188) with 242 hours should look like when well kept, in my opinion. Purchase price way less than $30k but is only a 19 footer. You should be able to find some boat like this, around here more and more show up every day on Craigslist. I went thru 35 before this one came into focus, "be ready not to buy".














Interior was my big focus this time, so as to get the wife more involved, she said my other boats "smell"

 

[jkust]

I've come to figure out that shoes in boats tend to be hard on the upholstery. Some people don't care and live for today and condition or preservation of original condition isn't in their mindset and some people have a no shoes rule and it really showed in the boats I looked at when I was buying last year. My original owner that I got my boat from had a no shoes, no colored drinks, no staining foods in his boat and he said he always caught flack from his friends about it. Also, and this is a bit out there, but some of the larger boats don't have a permanent bimini storage spot on them as backwards as that sounds and so the bimini is always on and up which sort of keeps some sun off it as well. My previous boat of 18 feet had a permanent bimini storage spot but I used the bimini i think twice total and my current 23'9" boat just doesn't which I can only presume is another reason the interior looks like it hasn't seen any use. The other thing is that when you take just a single step up size wise from the 18 foot class, the rear sunpad has a walk through/walk around so you aren't stepping onto the pad to enter the boat which again takes some stress off of the upholstery.
On that Bryant Maclin posted, someone must have really loved it as it has the MPI 4.3 and any MPI engine that wasn't a big block v8 had just come out in 2002 and very few people purchased such an expensive upgrade over the standard carb v6 in a boat where the upgrade would have been a big percentage of the boat cost back when MPI was just coming on the scene. One reason I like anything with a 5.7 because any 2002 and newer will have an mpi 5.7 as they just weren't doing a carb 5.7 but instead had an older throttle body fuel injection prior to 2002. The cool thing about boats is that the technology moved so crazy slow for so many years, you can have a 2002 MPI and it's the same as something from just a few years ago. Imagine cars using the same exact engine for 15 years with no increase in HP or technology.

 

[Maclin]

BTW, that dealer seems pretty cool That is almost as hard to find as a good boat!

 

[Maclin]

Some very good points there jkust, chewing on a couple of those as we move into the season :ranger:

 

[Maclin]

Trim, I had quite an eventful journey this time in my boat search-quest. From getting rescued in overheated and almost sinking "ready for the water" boat, to this one that just literally fell into my lap, and several in between. I will try to post the whole story in Dock Chat sometime this week or next.

 

[Trim]

The walk through transom is going to be a must for me. My 21 foot Rinker doesn't have one and it was my first boat so at the time I was so excited I think I over looked some options that I wanted. Plus got a great deal in the boat and was hard to pass up.

 

[jkust]

The walk through transom is going to be a must for me. My 21 foot Rinker doesn't have one and it was my first boat so at the time I was so excited I think I over looked some options that I wanted. Plus got a great deal in the boat and was hard to pass up.

Plus there's usually a removable cushion system that has dedicated stowage to convert the walk through into extra seating if needed.
My previous Chap didn't have the walk through either as it was only 18 feet but the vinyl was such high quality and the actual craftsmanship of the upholstery was so well done, walking over the motor box to enter the boat after 8 years didn't show any wear however.