[b00stinmk6]

Hello,
I'm new to the forum and am looking to buy this jet ski locally, it has 90 hours of ride time. I'm going to look at it tomorrow and was wondering what I shuold look for when inspecting the ski. Do Hondas tend to have more problems than others? Should I not buy a Honda?

Thanks,
Ryan.

 

[Outlaw]

Hello,
I'm new to the forum and am looking to buy this jet ski locally, it has 90 hours of ride time. I'm going to look at it tomorrow and was wondering what I shuold look for when inspecting the ski. Do Hondas tend to have more problems than others? Should I not buy a Honda?

Thanks,
Ryan.

Hi welcome to the forum, you are going to get a lot of opinions here, mostly due to brand loyality. Personally I would steer clear of any jet ski whose manufactuer has ceased building Jet skis, reason being no one usually stocks parts or support. For instance Honda dealers don't want to mess with their pwcs. Now about Honda Turbos, most problems with these is owner neglect in regards to the waste gate on the turbo sticking open or shut due to no care for the system which requires lubrication after each ride. This problem is worsened by salt water usage. There are alot of posts in the Honda forum about many problems. So unless you like OCD maint. stay away. Look at Yamaha or Seadoo they are the most reliable brands 2004 and up. Just my humble opinion.

 

[jrinjax]

Hello,
I'm new to the forum and am looking to buy this jet ski locally, it has 90 hours of ride time. I'm going to look at it tomorrow and was wondering what I shuold look for when inspecting the ski. Do Hondas tend to have more problems than others? Should I not buy a Honda?

Thanks,
Ryan.

I live in Florida and about one out of every 10 or 20 skis sold were Hondas.

Everytime I go out on the rivers here almost 50% of the skis being RIDDEN are Hondas. There are many of the other brands sitting on docks /yards that are not being ridden.

Hondas are extremely dependable if you do GOOD corrosion prevention on them. Bill Costa in Hawaii uses them for rentals and has almost all of his fleet with over 1000 hours and the original engines. The Yamahas before the Hondas were shot at 400 hours. He never tried SeeDoos for obvious reasons.

There is plenty of info on Hondas at PWCTODAY.COM in the Honda forums.
I have 3 F12X that we run like "scalded dogs" and go 100 miles from the boat ramp alone. The Yamahas I had before, I hated to get out of sight of the boat ramp.
The Hondas are not as fast [60 MPH] and it causes many Haters to knock them. They have the best gas mileage and range of any PWC too.
Honda did some dumb marketing like was mentioned above by putting them into the motorcycle division and then requiring the dealers to have a seperate showroom for just the Honda PWCS so they dropped the line instead. Honda has always been arrogant, because they feel they are the best.

Take it for a test run and make sure it will hit 6000RPM without any throwing any fault codes.

 

[b00stinmk6]

Thank you for the quick replies, I think what i'll do to be safe is ask the guy to meet me at a local jet ski shop to run a diagnostics test on the jet ski and see if anything is wrong with it. It'll cost me $80 to get it checked by a pro and a computer but better safe than sorry huh?

Thanks again.

 

[Outlaw]

Since we are doing head counts.....

Just thought I would report on what the percentages of each brand of Pwcs ridden on the water in the upper Chesapeake Bay are. Out of the skis on the water and being used and seen as one other poster claims. Largest percent goes to Yamaha, next is Seadoo, then a distant third is Kawasaki, almost non-existent Honda, Polaris and Tigershark. So I guess you got to go to Fla, to see Hondas in numbers. Sorry but the truth is the truth. the last three brands are in very low numbers........ask Ernest what he sees.

By the way when I was talking about sticking waste gates on the turbo , it is due to corroision from no lubrication, which will result in expensive repairs and hours of frustration with no help.

 

[jrinjax]

Thank you for the quick replies, I think what i'll do to be safe is ask the guy to meet me at a local jet ski shop to run a diagnostics test on the jet ski and see if anything is wrong with it. It'll cost me $80 to get it checked by a pro and a computer but better safe than sorry huh?

Thanks again.

Your best bet is to drop it in the water and make sure it will run 6000RPM for at least 3-4 minutes without throwing any codes or going into the limp mode. Then use a mirror and flashlight to check out the top of the turbo for corrosion.

 

[jrinjax]

Just thought I would report on what the percentages of each brand of Pwcs ridden on the water in the upper Chesapeake Bay are. Out of the skis on the water and being used and seen as one other poster claims. Largest percent goes to Yamaha, next is Seadoo, then a distant third is Kawasaki, almost non-existent Honda, Polaris and Tigershark. So I guess you got to go to Fla, to see Hondas in numbers. Sorry but the truth is the truth. the last three brands are in very low numbers........ask Ernest what he sees.

By the way when I was talking about sticking waste gates on the turbo , it is due to corroision from no lubrication, which will result in expensive repairs and hours of frustration with no help.

Every time I go out of the state I hardly ever see a Honda, because the dealers were not willing to sell them due to Honda's arrogance in marketing [only Hondas allowed on the showroom floor].
Here in Florida most of the Hondas that were sold seemed to be here and California.
Every time I go out I see a disportionate amount of Hondas compared to how many were sold.
We also had a much better dealer network and many of the dealers monitored the Honda Forums for solutions. This has kept many of them on the water along with their terrific fuel economy.

I was at Silver Glenn Spring Saturday [in my Allison Boat] and there were only 6 PWCs there due to the poor weather forecast, but one of the six was a Honda. The Honda rider was with 3 215 HP GTI riders who admitted they are beeping low fuel when the Honda is only down one bar.

They also had 80+ hours on their turbochargers with no rebuilds. I warned them that my Friend's GTI like theirs blew a clutch at just over 100 hours and fragmented his engine for a total loss. He parted out the GTI and bought an "new" 09 F15X.

I agree that Hondas are rare in most places, but here in Florida, they are well represented.

 

[Outlaw]

Every time I go out of the state I hardly ever see a Honda, because the dealers were not willing to sell them due to Honda's arrogance in marketing [only Hondas allowed on the showroom floor].
Here in Florida most of the Hondas that were sold seemed to be here and California.
Every time I go out I see a disportionate amount of Hondas compared to how many were sold.
We also had a much better dealer network and many of the dealers monitored the Honda Forums for solutions. This has kept many of them on the water along with their terrific fuel economy.

I was at Silver Glenn Spring Saturday [in my Allison Boat] and there were only 6 PWCs there due to the poor weather forecast, but one of the six was a Honda. The Honda rider was with 3 215 HP GTI riders who admitted they are beeping low fuel when the Honda is only down one bar.

They also had 80+ hours on their turbochargers with no rebuilds. I warned them that my Friend's GTI like theirs blew a clutch at just over 100 hours and fragmented his engine for a total loss. He parted out the GTI and bought an "new" 09 F15X.

I agree that Hondas are rare in most places, but here in Florida, they are well represented.

Well now I guess it's time to clarify the exaggerated ceramic thrust washer problem in the Seadoo superchargers, first of all since 2008 all models come with stainless steel thrust washers, ergo no problem. Models 2007 and older did have ceramic washers from the factory. After 120 hours they needed to be upgraded to stainless. Most problems were due to owner ignorance and poor pro-active care. It's not a difficult replacement. Accorrding to the lead tech at my dealer it is rare that if the ceramic washers fail to allow fragments to get into the engine. Just like my 2006 RXT, the RIVA STAGE III kit came with a Seadoo PRO-X supercharger with stainless washers. So what I can say is that if a Seadoo owner cannot feel loss of power due to washer wear before they let go, they probably should ride a Honda since they are not Qualified to ride and care for a Seadoo properly. It is not like it goes BOOM, there are signs before that happens. As stated earlier this is old news on older models, LET IT GO and help the dumb Honda owners that can;t take care of their turbos properly, there is an recent post here, "Do I need a new Turbo" .ity:

 

[jrinjax]

Well now I guess it's time to clarify the exaggerated ceramic thrust washer problem in the Seadoo superchargers, first of all since 2008 all models come with stainless steel thrust washers, ergo no problem. Models 2007 and older did have ceramic washers from the factory. After 120 hours they needed to be upgraded to stainless. Most problems were due to owner ignorance and poor pro-active care. It's not a difficult replacement. Accorrding to the lead tech at my dealer it is rare that if the ceramic washers fail to allow fragments to get into the engine. Just like my 2006 RXT, the RIVA STAGE III kit came with a Seadoo PRO-X supercharger with stainless washers. So what I can say is that if a Seadoo owner cannot feel loss of power due to washer wear before they let go, they probably should ride a Honda since they are not Qualified to ride and care for a Seadoo properly. It is not like it goes BOOM, there are signs before that happens. As stated earlier this is old news on older models, LET IT GO and help the dumb Honda owners that can;t take care of their turbos properly, there is an recent post here, "Do I need a new Turbo" .ity:

He had the upgrade washers but when he felt the loss in power, he was still a 1/2 hour from the boat ramp. He hoped it was a fouled plug but by the time he got to the ramp the engine seized.

It is all in what you want out of a 'ski, just like a boat. I put my A-boat in at Palatka Saturday and ran back and forth to Silver Glenn with my almost stock 2.5 Promax [100 mile roundtrip] on 24 gallons of fuel.
My friends with 260/280/Drag motors are 10-15 miles per hour faster but probably could not make the same trip on 40 gallons of fuel, if they would try that distance at all.

My Hondas are the same way, even with over 200 hours each, we take that trip all the time with fuel to spare and no worries about them breaking down. We do the same on the Suwannee.

My point is: In my area there were more Hondas sold and the dealers/owners eventually learned how to properly care for them. The owners here enjoy their Hondas enough to ride them in a disportionate amount to the number of Hondas sold [compared to the other brands].
I am an exYamaha owner and have had lots of friends with SeeDoos.

Most of them do not ride theirs often/at all. All of us with Hondas ride ours almost every weekend, 8 months a year.

 

[Outlaw]

Well that is a first time, never heard of stainless thrust washers failing. I have never had that problem even with the Beast RIVA STAGE III, that ski is run wide open a lot with no problems @76-78 mph. It smokes just about anything that tries it.