[seanx820]

I am looking at getting a couple jet skis under 10 grand (like a couple of 2002-04) jetski / sea doo or wave runners.

Questions are: I live in Charleston, SC so probably everything will have seen salt water. What should I be looking at when I go to look at PWCs? should I ask for a wet run or simply just turn them on and check for salt residue. I am a total newb at PWCs, I drove a motorcycle so that is my own experience with smaller engines.

Also how do you clean these guys out, I was reading some other posts, can you simply hook up a hose to the impeller and run it for like 15 minutes then throw some 'salt away' in there? I am trying to figure out what I need to do everytime I pull it out of the water. Any advice would be appreciated.

My last question is is there any advantage of one company over another. I really like my Yamaha motorcycle and my family has a Sea-Doo boat which was OK, but this is def going to see salt water if I buy one and I know sea-doo and yamaha and different cooling systems (yamaha draws water n to cool while sea-doo doesn't). DOes this matter in salt water, or should I stick with Seadoo?

 

[JayDawg]

Kawasaki and Yamaha are the best PWC's. No offense but Sea Doo's suck! Nothing but problems with them and the other brands that don't sell as much. With riding in salt water, if the ski has been maintained properly you should have no issues. I have a stand up with anywhere from 125 to 150 hours on it and and probably 90% of those hours are from the ocean or bay in San Diego. I always flushed my ski out afterwards and used Salt Away when doing do. I also would house down the ski afterwards, including the engine compartment, and then would spray all moving parts and the engine down with WD-40.

 

[seanx820]

awesome, to flush it out with a hose do you basically just stick a hose in the impeller? and putting wd-40 on the engine, why do you do this for a pwc but now a car? does it get really hot? is it better to get 2 stroke or 4 stroke.

-SC

 

[JayDawg]

There is a flush kit you buy that you hook a hose up too. Then after I have turned the engine on, and it has warmed up to were it will idle, I turn the hose on slowly. I then occasionally rev the engine a little bit until all of the salt away is dissolved. I then turn off of the hose and disconnect it from the flush kit. I would then wash the entire ski with soap and water and at the very least hose off the engine compartment area. After drying the ski, I would then WD-40 all moving parts like the throttle cable and engine.

As far as my truck goes, why would I WD-40 the engine on it? It would never come in contact with the salt water.

Your jet ski motor will not get hot if you have a hose running through the flush kit.

As far as what is better between a 2 and 4 stroke, that is all a matter of opinion. The 2 strokes are cheaper to rebuild, easier to work on with cheaper parts and it seems you can modify them a lot more easily and much more less expensively with more option on what to do to them. The 4 strokes are heavier but do not require as many higher rpm's to get going and it is my understand they have a little more torque off of the line. To be honest with you. I went and looked at a brand new Ultra 260X yesterday and while I fell in love with the thing and thought all of the technology that was packed into it was great, It looked like a nightmere to work on even to do simple things. I couldn't even find the oil filter on the thing and was told it was a pain in the butt to get too. Even my 99' Ultra 150 which at the time had the biggest motor ever put in a jet ski, is a snap to work on compared to this thing and I have plenty of working room to fix whatever is broken should something break. The new ski's, will all of the stuff they have crammed into the engine compartment is something you would have to pay a mechanic to work on and with as much stuff as they would have to take off to get to a simple component, you would be looking at big time bucks to fix something very simple and inexpensive as far as a part goes.