255xd Neutral Steering Assist

Good morning. I took delivery of a 255XD this April and am having troubles with the neutral steering assist feature. When under thrust turning the wheel to the right turns the boat to the right and vice versa. As soon as I go to neutral, the boat turns the opposite direction of the wheel. Sitting still in calm water in neutral - turn wheel to right, boat pivots to left. This can't be the way it is supposed to work. Every time you release the paddles to go to neutral while docking, the boat turns the opposite way of the wheel. Has anyone else experienced this?

I have a 222XD that I keep in Maryland and a 255XD that I keep in Southwest Florida. I find the paddles to be a gimmick on both boats, but on the 222XD, which has a rudder, at least when you release the paddles, you have a bit of steering authority. On the rudderless 255XD, you don't. I haven't performed the experiment that you describe (just sitting still in neutral and turning the wheel), but I don't necessarily find it surprising that with no forward velocity and no rudder, that this would happen. Assuming that you are saying that the bow moves right when the wheel is turned left, that would mean that the gates are slightly biased towards reverse while in neutral (there will always be some slight bias towards one or the other).

I get much better results doing what I do with any boat, which is bumping the throttle to provide puffs of power as necessary in either forward or reverse while using steering as I would with any boat. Even without the rudder and steering authority in neutral, I find that the 255 does pretty much as good at the 222.

I haven't heard of the term "neutral steering assist" with respect to these boats by the way. It's not (to the best of my knowledge) described in the owner's manual.

Only somewhat related (and I mentioned this in another thread), I can spin either boat in place using throttle and steering in a very controlled manner and way better than I can with the spin mode on the 255.

Mine is a 2024 and has an option in the DriveX menu to turn "Neutral Steering Assist" on or off. I've disabled it becuase it seems backwards.

Huh. Mine is 2024 also, but I guess I haven't fully explored the menu. I guess it's an undocumented feature. I'll have to try it out.

@crmcar

good post… I’ve got 24 255XD also and noticed that issue but just thought it was me doing something with the new boat. But, seems there could be something else going on. I’ve been though the menu and options but don’t remember seeing a neutral steering assist. I’ll check it later this week and 100% will be tiring that off!

Thanks for that info @TommyMcK

I think high idle and neutral steering assistance are the only two options under the DriveX menu. No mention of it in the manual though. My dealer mentioned it to me, but didn't say how it worked and can't figure out why it would steer the opposite.

Took me about 5min to find that Xdrive menu... didn't realize I had to scroll down just a little for that option. Never knew it was even there.

Turned Steering assist off. Let's see how that works. Thanks @crmcar and @TommyMcK for this thread.

I have the same issue on my 255 FSH Sport H. I think what happens is that when you shift into neutral, the buckets lower and create drag. The drag from the buckets causes the boat to spin in the opposite direction of the wheel. I've toggled the Neutral Steering Assist on and off and I can't seem to tell a difference. I just make sure that the wheel is straight before I shift into neutral. I don't love that this happens as it's hard to recover once the boat starts the spin.

Cobra Jet Steering LLC said:

The new design of the reverse bucket makes the reverse steering backward . Sea doo and even the Yamaha p w c has that reverse so you have to remember in reverse you look at the front of the boat and turn the wheel in the direction you want the front to go. My new rudder helps to make it a smoother transition in reverse as well as in forward and cuts back the fast side drift in in both forward and reverse.

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Huh... The topic here (I thought) was what happens in neutral. I don't typically use drive mode, but in normal operation (which under most circumstances for me is single throttle mode) reverse behaves like you'd normally expect. Are you saying that in drive mode, using the paddles, turning the wheel to the right in reverse makes the stern go to the left?

flyingnugget said:

Took me about 5min to find that Xdrive menu... didn't realize I had to scroll down just a little for that option. Never knew it was even there.

Turned Steering assist off. Let's see how that works. Thanks @crmcar and @TommyMcK for this thread.

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Yo Nugget. I turned off Neutral Steering Assist today. Big difference and I think I like it off. I have been using it but would have to do the normal jet boat left turn right turn back and forth as normal. When off it did not spin at all. Using DriveX was also better as when you release the paddles it would not begin to spin.

But it is up to the driver's liking.

@ahenderson432

Same here…much much better having it off. I agree.. mine is staying off. Winning ??

I've been away from my 255 for a couple of weeks. Getting back to FLA from MD this week, and will monkey around with it. It's still not clear to me if this only is applicable when in DriveX mode based on the comments. I never noticed anything odd when in normal mode, but I'll play with it and see.

Somewhat off topic, based on several threads here, I thought that I'd give the paddles more of a chance on my 222XD over the past couple of weeks here in Maryland. Just to force the issue, I only docked in Drive mode in a variety of conditions and docking situations (getting fuel at a dock, docking at several restaurants in tight quarters, pulling in to the lift in high winds), and I have to admit that I didn't give it enough of a chance before. I'm now firmly on team paddles...

OK, so back in FLA and took the thing out for lunch today, and sure enough, that's the behavior I'm getting. I guess I never decomposed the behavior as happening when the boat was in neutral. In both drivex mode and regular mode, when in neutral, the wheel has the opposite effect relative to what's normal.

In my case though, turning off neutral assist did nothing to change the behavior. Interestingly, my brain compensated for it fairly quickly, but it's definitely not a feature I'd prefer. I disabled it while on the water with the engine running, so maybe the menu adjustment didn't take. I'll play with it later and see what I see.

One way or the other though, what became clear in all of this is that I had way more control of direction (pointing really) in neutral than I had imagined. Still learning the thing I guess.

Yep, behaves the same in both DriveX and Normal mode. It took me a couple times on the water to realize what was happening. However, once I realized what was going on it was only a short time before I acclimated to making the adjustment while in neutral. It works fine for keeping the boat straight when Im waiting for my boarder to get set up for a pull. Admittedly, it's a little confusing to change the way you steer from normal mode underway to neutral - as someone stated it behaves like it has a little reverse bias. While in normal mode it's easy but being in DriveX mode for docking takes a little practice. I finally got used to it. I will probably toggle it off and on to see if I can tell a difference.

crmcar said:

Good morning. I took delivery of a 255XD this April and am having troubles with the neutral steering assist feature. When under thrust turning the wheel to the right turns the boat to the right and vice versa. As soon as I go to neutral, the boat turns the opposite direction of the wheel. Sitting still in calm water in neutral - turn wheel to right, boat pivots to left. This can't be the way it is supposed to work. Every time you release the paddles to go to neutral while docking, the boat turns the opposite way of the wheel. Has anyone else experienced this?

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I recently (March 2025) took delivery of new 2024 252SD and am having the exact same issue. Did you figure out a resolution?

Possibly the reverse bucket design p w c's are backward steering in reverse due to the design but in neutral on your style of nozzle it is probably doing the same thing not sure if my steering would resolve that or not.

MattJL said:

I recently (March 2025) took delivery of new 2024 252SD and am having the exact same issue. Did you figure out a resolution?

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I forget the threads where this was discussed in more detail, but this is the result of the buckets being biased slightly towards reverse thrust when commanded to neutral. So, while in neutral, with just a bit of reverse thrust being applied, steering behaves as if you are in reverse (wheel to port brings the stern to port). I got the service manual and there is an adjustment for this, but it's more involved with the XDs and involves re-programming some settings (not just a matter of adjusting a linkage.)

In the end, it was less complicated for me to re-program my brain than either re-programming the boat or bringing the boat to a dealer to do it. I agree it's non-ideal, but once you get used to it, it isn't an issue. This happens by the way regardless of if you are in dock assist mode or not.

TommyMcK said:

I forget the threads where this was discussed in more detail, but this is the result of the buckets being biased slightly towards reverse thrust when commanded to neutral. So, while in neutral, with just a bit of reverse thrust being applied, steering behaves as if you are in reverse (wheel to port brings the stern to port). I got the service manual and there is an adjustment for this, but it's more involved with the XDs and involves re-programming some settings (not just a matter of adjusting a linkage.)

In the end, it was less complicated for me to re-program my brain than either re-programming the boat or bringing the boat to a dealer to do it. I agree it's non-ideal, but once you get used to it, it isn't an issue. This happens by the way regardless of if you are in dock assist mode or not.

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Thanks for the reply. I’m confident I can retrain my brain to adapt. That said, it’s a bit frustrating to pay extra for the SD and still have to resort to workarounds. I haven’t seen this issue mentioned in any test videos, so far.

MattJL said:

Thanks for the reply. I’m confident I can retrain my brain to adapt. That said, it’s a bit frustrating to pay extra for the SD and still have to resort to workarounds. I haven’t seen this issue mentioned in any test videos, so far.

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It's not very convenient for me to get the boat to a dealer and I tend to do most of the regular maintenance stuff myself. But if you take yours in for service, I'm sure it'd be covered and easily done by the shop the next time you are in.

This attachment describes how the Neutral Steering Assist is supposed to work on a 255FSH