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Na. Those are for those folks who want to marry their boat.

I still like hands-on

Hands-on is great. I think we all know what that means. If it is a project that I’ll enjoy and is interesting I’ll get all “hands-on”, winterizing doesn’t fall in that category, plus with the boat on the lift and in the slip there are all sorts of pitfalls I wish to avoid.

Are you guys getting a partial winterizing for $150-200? I just spent $404.79 for oil change(synthetic), oil & fuel filters, lower unit gear lube, stabil, engine fogging, pull and grease prop splines, gallon of antifreeze. Dealer is closing so I need to find another source next year but what's fair price?

Dub

Alaskabound wrote: Fri Oct 27, 2017 2:58 pm Are you guys getting a partial winterizing for $150-200? I just spent $404.79 for oil change(synthetic), oil & fuel filters, lower unit gear lube, stabil, engine fogging, pull and grease prop splines, gallon of antifreeze. Dealer is closing so I need to find another source next year but what's fair price?

Dub

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Around here (NE Pennsylvania) $150-200 gets you a fogging; antifreeze mix pumped thru the engine raw water pump; and Stabil dumped in the tank. 10 minutes!

I still remember watching Engle's Holiday Harbor in New Eagle PA winterizing our brand new Donzi. I paid $150 (in 1995!) for something that literally took 10 minutes. I could not believe it.

That's when I decided to do this myself. It's just too simple. --a 5 gallon jug with muffs and 2 quarts of Walmart -50F antifreeze mixed with hot water sucked into the outdrive for five minutes. Oh, don't forget to dump your eight dollar bottle of Stabil into the tank. See you in 10 to 15 minutes.

The Mobil 1 15W-50 full synthetic oil change costs $45 ($22 for 5 qts at Walmart) plus a $10 Factory Merc Filter when I do it myself. $60 out the door. Heaven forbid you have the Cobalt dealer do this "extra" maintenence. You're gonna pay.

Factory Merc fuel filter--$10. Spin old one off. Spin new one on. ((With fogging oil added if you desire)

Prop removal takes 3 minutes and an entire tube of Merc quicksilver grease is $12


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I just received this mailer today from Seattle Boat Company--a well known dealer on the west coast (maybe THE most well known Cobalt dealer in the country) with whom I used to deal.

Look at the starting winterizing prices and read down from there. Notice they are not too descriptive with the services performed.

Bottom line--Winterizing is a cash cow for dealers.

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A day of getting "hands on" doesn't involve anything mechanical but a lot of towels and cleaning products. Thanks BB for the tip on the Amazing Cleaner... It really is amazing!! Also loved the new cleaner wax this year...the boat waent showing any oxidation just wanted to get a deeper clean and really like the results. Followed up w the flagship wax/polish. Thanks to the Honda generator we knocked all this out at our storage facility!

I know you boys like pics so I took a few!

A few more of the finished product...very happy with how she's looking... Too bad we won't see her until spring

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Nice job Nauti

That red on white is sharp. Spring cannot come soon enough !