seadude
Jetboaters Lieutenant
- Messages
- 190
- Reaction score
- 106
- Points
- 162
- Location
- NJ
- Boat Make
- Yamaha
- Year
- 2016
- Boat Model
- 242 Limited S E-Series
- Boat Length
- 24
Moved into an LSE from a '13 AR240 and previously had an '09 SX210, so I guess that makes me one of Yamaha's biggest fans! Favorite features are the E-series bimini which is the best in the business and the long overdue single lever auto-syncing throttle as well having some off-throttle steering with the rudder, sorry - articulating keel, and being (slightly) quieter and tracking (slightly) better, altogether making the boat much more comfortable to use.
Not a fan of Connext, would have preferred more "hard" buttons and kept the touchscreen for media, setup, diagnostics and added navigation maps. Kind of ironic the most important info on the display (depth) has less prominence then the (bogus) second battery readout, and the depth finder still has trouble finding the bottom in shallow waters which is the main reason I've owned these jet drive boats. While Yamaha did give us a joystick control to use when you don't want to peck at tiny touchscreen buttons with greasy fingers, there are so many sections and buttons to maneuver around as well as times when there seems to be no highlighted button choice or it doesn't indicate properly (try selecting "single lever" with the joystick) that I find it a bit frustrating to use so far. It was surprising to see other things which haven't been improved such as the fuel gauge (now with 1% digital readout accuracy) that still drops 20% or so when you come off plane!
I did encounter one E-series "gotcha". My AR240 had that intermittent hot start problem and occasionally required long cranks to restart one of the motors. I guess this "feature" is still included on the 2016 1.8L motors except now the push button start gives up cranking after only a few seconds and gives you two tries before timing out! Fortunately the other motor started right up since I was about to drift onto a shoal. I didn't try cycling the key or holding the button in longer which might have let the motor start. I'll keep an eye on this but it's disappointing to potentially have the same hot start issue on the new boat.
No battery drain or other power anomalies (so far) that Julian and others are unfortunately experiencing (that DVSR common ground wire is connected on my boat and I think the factory leaves the head light on which I happened to notice).
It the nature of forum posts to be negative, but overall I am satisfied with the new boat although I could come up with more than a few suggested improvements and surprisingly cheapo features for Yamaha to fix. My guess is the boat is only a thousand dollars or so away from being on the level of the other top manufacturers by spending more on upgraded hardware and improved finishing. While this was a pricey upgrade to very much the same boat as my AR, it was worthwhile to me but I may uniquely place a high value on those first few features mentioned.
Not a fan of Connext, would have preferred more "hard" buttons and kept the touchscreen for media, setup, diagnostics and added navigation maps. Kind of ironic the most important info on the display (depth) has less prominence then the (bogus) second battery readout, and the depth finder still has trouble finding the bottom in shallow waters which is the main reason I've owned these jet drive boats. While Yamaha did give us a joystick control to use when you don't want to peck at tiny touchscreen buttons with greasy fingers, there are so many sections and buttons to maneuver around as well as times when there seems to be no highlighted button choice or it doesn't indicate properly (try selecting "single lever" with the joystick) that I find it a bit frustrating to use so far. It was surprising to see other things which haven't been improved such as the fuel gauge (now with 1% digital readout accuracy) that still drops 20% or so when you come off plane!
I did encounter one E-series "gotcha". My AR240 had that intermittent hot start problem and occasionally required long cranks to restart one of the motors. I guess this "feature" is still included on the 2016 1.8L motors except now the push button start gives up cranking after only a few seconds and gives you two tries before timing out! Fortunately the other motor started right up since I was about to drift onto a shoal. I didn't try cycling the key or holding the button in longer which might have let the motor start. I'll keep an eye on this but it's disappointing to potentially have the same hot start issue on the new boat.
No battery drain or other power anomalies (so far) that Julian and others are unfortunately experiencing (that DVSR common ground wire is connected on my boat and I think the factory leaves the head light on which I happened to notice).
It the nature of forum posts to be negative, but overall I am satisfied with the new boat although I could come up with more than a few suggested improvements and surprisingly cheapo features for Yamaha to fix. My guess is the boat is only a thousand dollars or so away from being on the level of the other top manufacturers by spending more on upgraded hardware and improved finishing. While this was a pricey upgrade to very much the same boat as my AR, it was worthwhile to me but I may uniquely place a high value on those first few features mentioned.
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