2008 Yamaha SX230

[Moore10]

I am going to do a sea trial on a Yamaha SX230 on Saturday, April 25, 2020. I currently have a 175 Sea Ray, but we want to get a bigger boat. The dealership is selling the boat for 15k out the door, with a trailer. I'm told the boat was previously owned by a guy in the military, who lived in Texas and Florida, which means the boat was in salt water. I have a couple concerns 1. The boat was in salt water (I have kind of settled with this issues because the guy was in the military. I believe he probably washed the engines out after each ride or pretty close to it. 2. The price seems low for the boat based on everything I see on other forums. Does anyone have any advice?

 

[mark_m]

Price is good. I wouldn’t be too afraid of salt, IF the previous owner properly treated it. Check the engine bay, look for rusty clamps and the like. You should see surfaces coated by a protectant.

what are the hours on the motors? How does the interior vinyl of the boat look? Most of the time, if an owner takes care of the interior, they take care of flushing the engines with salt away.

Check out the pumps and the anodes at the stern. Did the prior owner replace the scupper valve with stainless?

what does the trailer look like? are the brakes, axels and leaf springs rusted all to heck? These are a few things to look for when you check out the boat
get pictures and report back... pictures often tell a lot.

 

[svana]

I picked up my 08 sx230 for 14k, it had 86ish hours on it - barely driven by a snowbird down here in Tampa. Haven’t seen a similar priced boat yet, but if it’s in good condition I would t shy away from it. So far main issues I’ve had to address were throttle cables and a few busted clamps from me installing a stainless scupper.

 

[Beachbummer]

That's aggressively priced for a dealer. Three suggestions:

Water Test! (Run it hard!) should reach 10,000 rpms on both motors at WOT.
Operate every button/lever/latch.
Check Engine Compression.

Reading YDS (compuer hook up) provides valuable info. Where is the boat?

Best of luck! It's an awesome model boat (Same one I have )