billshotel
Junior Member
Boca raton Florida this is a detailed letter written to a top executive in silverton I have recieved no responce http://silvertonlemon.com/
I wanted to personally send you an email unfortunately it is long but it is a detailed explanation of my boat ownership. I understand there is a meeting Wednesday scheduled with Ransome motors of NJ and I would like you to have this before.
I purchased a 43 foot Silverton Motor Yacht for $425,000.00,as new with 80 hours on it on 6/26/03.The delivery went fine and I was very pleased with my decision.
My first trip was on 7/4/03. I cruised to Freeport the Bahamas. I spent about three weeks in the Bahamas on my boat cruising the island. I returned on 7/23/03. During that trip my problems began. I would constantly get High inlet air alarms. What I did was lower RPM to approximately 1,500 and alarm would quiet down. I made it back safely.
When I returned home I immediately contacted my sales rep Scott at Sundance Marine. He had Randy, the service manager contact me to schedule an appointment with Pantropic Cat's Authorized service which at that point I had 92 hours, that went as follows.
#1 7/25/03 A Pantropic mechanic came over checked engines and decided all that was needed was to raise Alarm setting from 140 to 180. That was performed with his laptop.
#2 Took boat out for weekend. Air Inlet Alarms started going off again. Boat began losing power. Pantropic sends same mechanic over and he decides to change Digital Dash Panel on port engine, Now he felt the problem was in the gauges.
Next time I went to use the boat. The VHF did not work because the mechanic changed the Dash and he broke wires to VHF.
#3 In August Sundance Marine invited me on a Bimini trip. Went to South Bimini with no trouble but had major trouble on the way back. Had to come in on one engine port. The Air inlet alarm was above 220 engine had no power at all.
#4 I called Pantropic again. This time they sent an electronic certified mechanic that had been trained to work on 3126B 450 HP Cat's. Bob from Pantropic said, "The air inlet heaters are what is causing this, I will disconnect them." "You only need them in weather below 45 degrees."
5# I came home from work the following day to test drive the boat. When I started the engines, they smoked so bad it was unbelievable!!
I called Jamie the service manager at that time with Pantropic.
She was abrupt and nasty as she said,
"Bob told you the boat would smoke like that."
I told her I have a new boat and want it running as one.
Fix IT Right!!
6# Bob, Pantropics mechanic came over to test boat again and says, I need solenoids on the engine. they are out of stock, I will order and replace them when they come in.
7# Bob replaces solenoids and in his research finds out the software my engines are running on ,are three behind the newest version. He flashes software and says, "It will be fine". I take it for a short run. The air inlet temperature is high but it seemed like he set alarm very high because it did not go off.
8# On 8/14 I have a Freeport Bahamas trip planned with My family. I fly four people to Florida pack boat for a two week trip. I get to Boca Inlet. Alarms going off. I really had trouble handling boat in Boca Inlet with one engine and came back. At this point I am very upset at Pantropic because I have the expense of family coming down and using their vacation time. Soonest Pantropics can get to it is 8/18.
9# 8/18 We sea trial boat and Bob decides I need heads and valves but tell me that it is SILVERTON'S FAULT, because engines were not installed without proper ventilation. So warrantee was void. Silverton claimed Caterpillar authorized dealer installed motors named Ransome so they are not at fault. For two weeks my boat sat as Sundance Marine, Caterpillar and Silverton can decide who was at fault!!
10# Sundance comes removes all my interior furniture, couches and carpets and stores them in my garage a few days later it is brought to a marina in Riviera beach convenient to Pantropic. They replace the heads and claimed it was ready to Pick Up.
11# 9/11 Capt. Rich goes to pick up boat he calls me tells me boat did not perform well, only achieved 2500 RPM should be 2850 and I am about to pull in your canal. I said, "Wait for me and do not go in my canal if the water level is down to Barnacle growth, there are rocks you will hit!!!" He said ,I will go touch and go nice and easy. Sure as hell my NEW BOAT had to sit on a pile of rocks till the tide came up.
12# Finally by mid October the boat was finished and ran at 2850 RPM as it should and it was back behind my house. I lost the entire summer season 6/26 to 10/15. Three and a half full months of Hell making insurance and boat loan payments cost of changing plans,etc. Besides the fact that I paid $425,000.00 for this misery.
So reading this you realize I understand boats and realize there will be normal problems through out the years of ownership. I personally replaced my battery charging system. I paid on two occasions to fix my generator first time bad solenoid second impeller. My A/C's failed in Master state room and galley, windless anchor, etc. I understand those problems some were warranted others I paid to fix but that is part of boating. I also had Pantropic do a preventive maintenance on both my engines and Generator on 4/29/05 costing me $1,218.82. I had to call Ollie the service Mgr of Pantropic at least four times and it took over four months for me to receive a copy of my invoice for work performed to my engines and generator. He claimed they were short of help in the billing department.
On 8/30 myself and three family members flew to spend a weekend and P/U boat from Freeport Bahamas. 9/2 I attempted to leave the Port engine began to smoke. I stopped immediately brought boat in on one engine and contacted Scott via email and he recommended me to M & E a Bohemian Catipillar authorized service rep. Barry was the service manager he said it would take a couple of day to come check it. So I stayed behind and chose to fly the other three home costing $750.00. When the Cat service guy came again with the laptop tells me we need a new injector. He also said I would have to pay for any service and was very adamant about having my credit card. He said "MY CATERPILLAR WARRANTEE IS NOT VALID IN THE BAHAMAS ONLY USA" I said, just fix it. Here is my CC!!
Well, after a week of him lying about parts I decided to fly back.
I asked Randy to get involved from Sundance Marines service and he said he called and these guy's just work on Island time. Three weeks later of Barry sending mechanics, asking for more time for parts to come in, Dock fees, water and electric fees running up .Barry called and said, "We won't charge you, it is over our head we can't repair it." THIS IS CATERPILLARS AUTHORIZED DEALER IN FREEPORT BAHAMAS!!!!!!!
I make arrangements with Sundance to Pick up Boat .Pay two Captains Cash for two days, two airline tickets a hotel room, meals and transportation cost me over $1,500.00 cash to get my boat back.
Pantropic comes to my house. Checks boat ,says it is major they will get back to me. Finally they decide they will replace port engine and rebuild starboard engine and today is 1/16/2006 and as of today I still do not have my boat back with no guaranteed date in site.
My boat is in Hundreds of pieces all disassembled because it is a aft cabin boat and in order to replace engines entire interior, furniture, carpet,etc has to be removed plus flooring.. Basically it looks like a pile of junk that I paid 425,00.00 for.
My boat has been in service and unusable for over a total of nine months since i have owned it!! That is nine boat payments, Insurance payments,so many to list miscellaneous expenses, Dock fees, captain expenses flights and most of all the embarrassing inconvenience I have been through. I have spent at least 40,000.00 of my money during the down time plus the boat's depreciation for the nine months I could not use it. OVER 30% of THE TIME I HAVE OWNED IT. IT HAS BEEN UNUSABLE. THERE IS ONLY A TOTAL OF 160 HOURS ON THIS BOAT AS OF TODAY! I purchased it with 80 hours on it!
All I have asked for so far is a fair alternative option to get out of this boat without me taking all the loss .I have already taken at least $40,000.00 cash loss. My dealership knew I wanted Volvo's to begin with and they talked me into these Caterpillar engines. I paid $425,000.00 in trust of Scott and Rick's opinion of these engines because I was against those engines from day one.
I now noticed in a email from a Silverton Executive that they now have chose not to use Caterpillar products any more as SeaRay and many others manufactures have. I feel that Caterpillar and Pantropic have been the majority of the problems. Silverton is who manufactures and assembles the boat and Sundance is who I purchased the boat from. With serious doubts about Caterpillar engines. They are four major corporations in the marine industry and some fair offer of compromise should be made to me for my unjust treatment concerning the ownership of my 43 Silverton Motor Yacht.
I wanted to personally send you an email unfortunately it is long but it is a detailed explanation of my boat ownership. I understand there is a meeting Wednesday scheduled with Ransome motors of NJ and I would like you to have this before.
I purchased a 43 foot Silverton Motor Yacht for $425,000.00,as new with 80 hours on it on 6/26/03.The delivery went fine and I was very pleased with my decision.
My first trip was on 7/4/03. I cruised to Freeport the Bahamas. I spent about three weeks in the Bahamas on my boat cruising the island. I returned on 7/23/03. During that trip my problems began. I would constantly get High inlet air alarms. What I did was lower RPM to approximately 1,500 and alarm would quiet down. I made it back safely.
When I returned home I immediately contacted my sales rep Scott at Sundance Marine. He had Randy, the service manager contact me to schedule an appointment with Pantropic Cat's Authorized service which at that point I had 92 hours, that went as follows.
#1 7/25/03 A Pantropic mechanic came over checked engines and decided all that was needed was to raise Alarm setting from 140 to 180. That was performed with his laptop.
#2 Took boat out for weekend. Air Inlet Alarms started going off again. Boat began losing power. Pantropic sends same mechanic over and he decides to change Digital Dash Panel on port engine, Now he felt the problem was in the gauges.
Next time I went to use the boat. The VHF did not work because the mechanic changed the Dash and he broke wires to VHF.
#3 In August Sundance Marine invited me on a Bimini trip. Went to South Bimini with no trouble but had major trouble on the way back. Had to come in on one engine port. The Air inlet alarm was above 220 engine had no power at all.
#4 I called Pantropic again. This time they sent an electronic certified mechanic that had been trained to work on 3126B 450 HP Cat's. Bob from Pantropic said, "The air inlet heaters are what is causing this, I will disconnect them." "You only need them in weather below 45 degrees."
5# I came home from work the following day to test drive the boat. When I started the engines, they smoked so bad it was unbelievable!!
I called Jamie the service manager at that time with Pantropic.
She was abrupt and nasty as she said,
"Bob told you the boat would smoke like that."
I told her I have a new boat and want it running as one.
Fix IT Right!!
6# Bob, Pantropics mechanic came over to test boat again and says, I need solenoids on the engine. they are out of stock, I will order and replace them when they come in.
7# Bob replaces solenoids and in his research finds out the software my engines are running on ,are three behind the newest version. He flashes software and says, "It will be fine". I take it for a short run. The air inlet temperature is high but it seemed like he set alarm very high because it did not go off.
8# On 8/14 I have a Freeport Bahamas trip planned with My family. I fly four people to Florida pack boat for a two week trip. I get to Boca Inlet. Alarms going off. I really had trouble handling boat in Boca Inlet with one engine and came back. At this point I am very upset at Pantropic because I have the expense of family coming down and using their vacation time. Soonest Pantropics can get to it is 8/18.
9# 8/18 We sea trial boat and Bob decides I need heads and valves but tell me that it is SILVERTON'S FAULT, because engines were not installed without proper ventilation. So warrantee was void. Silverton claimed Caterpillar authorized dealer installed motors named Ransome so they are not at fault. For two weeks my boat sat as Sundance Marine, Caterpillar and Silverton can decide who was at fault!!
10# Sundance comes removes all my interior furniture, couches and carpets and stores them in my garage a few days later it is brought to a marina in Riviera beach convenient to Pantropic. They replace the heads and claimed it was ready to Pick Up.
11# 9/11 Capt. Rich goes to pick up boat he calls me tells me boat did not perform well, only achieved 2500 RPM should be 2850 and I am about to pull in your canal. I said, "Wait for me and do not go in my canal if the water level is down to Barnacle growth, there are rocks you will hit!!!" He said ,I will go touch and go nice and easy. Sure as hell my NEW BOAT had to sit on a pile of rocks till the tide came up.
12# Finally by mid October the boat was finished and ran at 2850 RPM as it should and it was back behind my house. I lost the entire summer season 6/26 to 10/15. Three and a half full months of Hell making insurance and boat loan payments cost of changing plans,etc. Besides the fact that I paid $425,000.00 for this misery.
So reading this you realize I understand boats and realize there will be normal problems through out the years of ownership. I personally replaced my battery charging system. I paid on two occasions to fix my generator first time bad solenoid second impeller. My A/C's failed in Master state room and galley, windless anchor, etc. I understand those problems some were warranted others I paid to fix but that is part of boating. I also had Pantropic do a preventive maintenance on both my engines and Generator on 4/29/05 costing me $1,218.82. I had to call Ollie the service Mgr of Pantropic at least four times and it took over four months for me to receive a copy of my invoice for work performed to my engines and generator. He claimed they were short of help in the billing department.
On 8/30 myself and three family members flew to spend a weekend and P/U boat from Freeport Bahamas. 9/2 I attempted to leave the Port engine began to smoke. I stopped immediately brought boat in on one engine and contacted Scott via email and he recommended me to M & E a Bohemian Catipillar authorized service rep. Barry was the service manager he said it would take a couple of day to come check it. So I stayed behind and chose to fly the other three home costing $750.00. When the Cat service guy came again with the laptop tells me we need a new injector. He also said I would have to pay for any service and was very adamant about having my credit card. He said "MY CATERPILLAR WARRANTEE IS NOT VALID IN THE BAHAMAS ONLY USA" I said, just fix it. Here is my CC!!
Well, after a week of him lying about parts I decided to fly back.
I asked Randy to get involved from Sundance Marines service and he said he called and these guy's just work on Island time. Three weeks later of Barry sending mechanics, asking for more time for parts to come in, Dock fees, water and electric fees running up .Barry called and said, "We won't charge you, it is over our head we can't repair it." THIS IS CATERPILLARS AUTHORIZED DEALER IN FREEPORT BAHAMAS!!!!!!!
I make arrangements with Sundance to Pick up Boat .Pay two Captains Cash for two days, two airline tickets a hotel room, meals and transportation cost me over $1,500.00 cash to get my boat back.
Pantropic comes to my house. Checks boat ,says it is major they will get back to me. Finally they decide they will replace port engine and rebuild starboard engine and today is 1/16/2006 and as of today I still do not have my boat back with no guaranteed date in site.
My boat is in Hundreds of pieces all disassembled because it is a aft cabin boat and in order to replace engines entire interior, furniture, carpet,etc has to be removed plus flooring.. Basically it looks like a pile of junk that I paid 425,00.00 for.
My boat has been in service and unusable for over a total of nine months since i have owned it!! That is nine boat payments, Insurance payments,so many to list miscellaneous expenses, Dock fees, captain expenses flights and most of all the embarrassing inconvenience I have been through. I have spent at least 40,000.00 of my money during the down time plus the boat's depreciation for the nine months I could not use it. OVER 30% of THE TIME I HAVE OWNED IT. IT HAS BEEN UNUSABLE. THERE IS ONLY A TOTAL OF 160 HOURS ON THIS BOAT AS OF TODAY! I purchased it with 80 hours on it!
All I have asked for so far is a fair alternative option to get out of this boat without me taking all the loss .I have already taken at least $40,000.00 cash loss. My dealership knew I wanted Volvo's to begin with and they talked me into these Caterpillar engines. I paid $425,000.00 in trust of Scott and Rick's opinion of these engines because I was against those engines from day one.
I now noticed in a email from a Silverton Executive that they now have chose not to use Caterpillar products any more as SeaRay and many others manufactures have. I feel that Caterpillar and Pantropic have been the majority of the problems. Silverton is who manufactures and assembles the boat and Sundance is who I purchased the boat from. With serious doubts about Caterpillar engines. They are four major corporations in the marine industry and some fair offer of compromise should be made to me for my unjust treatment concerning the ownership of my 43 Silverton Motor Yacht.