Frustrating pontoon repair

   / Frustrating pontoon repair
  • Thread Starter
#41  
Well an update is long overdue I guess.
After the first ugly repair that I shared on the original post I decided to take it to the boat repair shop locally that had a contract welder they hired for any weld repairs. They actually knew what they were talking h about, and very carefully repaired the one area still leaking. But on the drive home some of the original repair cracked some more. Not good.

So being ultra frustrated I started looking up sylvan pontoons and crack repairs online and learned that the year and style I have was very prone to leaks due to a design flaw. Many of the people had their pontoons replaced with a redesigned version. I then looked on the sylvan website and saw it was lifetime warranty. That all sounded good, but I started assuming that since I had some third party weld in it the warranty would be void. But worth a try I figured. I called the dealer we bought it from and they said bring it in and they will take a look. And if I had pictures from before the bad repair even better as they would send those to the warranty department. Luckily I had a single picture so I hooked up the boat and made the 300 km drive one way and dropped the boat off three weeks ago. I kept calling the dealer every 3-4 days for updates and they hadn’t looked at it yet, but since I was away on a two week vacation it didn’t bother me.

Well today is the last day of vacation and I just got a call from the dealer saying that the manufacturer is sending two brand new pontoons for the boat on warranty. It will be 6-8 weeks delivery so basically this summer is out but oh well. That was the best possible outcome and one I never expected!
 
   / Frustrating pontoon repair #43  
Well an update is long overdue I guess.
After the first ugly repair that I shared on the original post I decided to take it to the boat repair shop locally that had a contract welder they hired for any weld repairs. They actually knew what they were talking h about, and very carefully repaired the one area still leaking. But on the drive home some of the original repair cracked some more. Not good.

So being ultra frustrated I started looking up sylvan pontoons and crack repairs online and learned that the year and style I have was very prone to leaks due to a design flaw. Many of the people had their pontoons replaced with a redesigned version. I then looked on the sylvan website and saw it was lifetime warranty. That all sounded good, but I started assuming that since I had some third party weld in it the warranty would be void. But worth a try I figured. I called the dealer we bought it from and they said bring it in and they will take a look. And if I had pictures from before the bad repair even better as they would send those to the warranty department. Luckily I had a single picture so I hooked up the boat and made the 300 km drive one way and dropped the boat off three weeks ago. I kept calling the dealer every 3-4 days for updates and they hadn’t looked at it yet, but since I was away on a two week vacation it didn’t bother me.

Well today is the last day of vacation and I just got a call from the dealer saying that the manufacturer is sending two brand new pontoons for the boat on warranty. It will be 6-8 weeks delivery so basically this summer is out but oh well. That was the best possible outcome and one I never expected!

OEM boat parts are tricky like that in that they take forever, and the dealer likely doesn't know what is going on. Good to know Sylvan is standing behind their product. That said, replacing the pontoons is a pile of work.
 
   / Frustrating pontoon repair
  • Thread Starter
#44  
OEM boat parts are tricky like that in that they take forever, and the dealer likely doesn't know what is going on. Good to know Sylvan is standing behind their product. That said, replacing the pontoons is a pile of work.

They said it will probably take a week of work to change them out. Basically this summer of boating is done, as cools weather will have rolled around by the time this is fixed. It still is a great outcome as I didn’t trust it enough to put my family on it with that ugly cracking repair.
Time to enjoy the last day of vacation. IMG_8424.JPGIMG_8439.JPG
 
   / Frustrating pontoon repair #47  
I'm impressed that they are standing behind their product. Congratulations!!!
 
   / Frustrating pontoon repair #48  
Makes me feel better about owning a Sylvan!
 
   / Frustrating pontoon repair #49  
Sylvan is a decent product. Awesome that they are covering this.
 
   / Frustrating pontoon repair #50  
Awesome outcome
 

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