Dissapointed Wellcraft Owner...

[cliffpaul2]

On Sunday I took the boat out for it's first trip since buying it and restoring it for four months. *It is a 1980 V-20 with a 305 Chevy I/O and a Volvo Penta outdrive. *I paid $5200 for it and have invested at least that much in repairs and upgrades.

I was disappointed to notice that it pulls to the left A LOT when I'm on plane. *

Now I'll skip ahead about five days. *

I just took it to the mechanic, who determined on the spot *that the outdrive was mounted crooked by the factory in 1980. *To give you an idea, the bottom mounting holes are different distances from the bottom of the transom by 1/2 inch! *Needless to say, I'm extremely disappointed about this news. *

Until now I had heard nothing but great things about the V-20 and about Wellcraft boats. *All I can say is:

*What kind of idiot boat assembly worker could let this happen? *And...
*Where was the attention to detail by Wellcraft, who should have inspected and corrected it before it was ever sold. *And...
*Why didn't the original owner return it to the manufacturer while it was still under warranty? *And...
*How could the second owner have sold this boat to me without revealing such a major defect?

Well I guess that's quite a lot to say, but what the hell, I'm venting.

Besides pulling the motor and altering the transom so that the holes line up, the only fix that the mechanic recommended was to change the rotation of the prop. *This is apparently a fairly easy thing to do to a Volvo outdrive, but I'll have to buy a new prop for $300 and I'm not even sure it will help. *The left hand rotation of the prop is apparently exxagerating the problem. * In theory, reversing it will offset the pull. *

I would appreciate your comments and input, but please don't tell me I should have bought an outboard! >:(

*[s][/s]