All good
@Bcollins111900 . Only one way to learn.
During the year 2017, BRP decided to redesign their superchargers. People don't like having to regularly rebuild them but yet, still want ALL the HP. lol It's yet another maintenance cost and this one is fairly involved since you have to remove it from the engine and send it off/bring it to a dealer. Also fairly costly to rebuild. So 2017 was the year they released a newly designed supercharger that is supposedly better balanced/designed. Those things spin at crazy rates and any small balancing issues can be catastrophic. They can shoot metal pieces including the bearings themselves out and into the engine causing lots of damage.
So the idea was, make them better/more solid/more stable. Then they become "maintenance free". Aka, no need to get them rebuilt every 200h. But... the catch was, you still need to get them reviewed/inspected by a professional every 200h. So... IF they are in good shape, then yeah, it's quite a bit cheaper. Just get it checked out. And hopefully it's good for another 200h. You pay a relatively small fee for the inspection and you're done. But if it's overly worn because you have the throttle at 100% at all times, etc. Then you're suppose to shell out the big bucks and buy a new one.
Third party companies realized that buying a new one is ridiculous and that these new superchargers can STILL be rebuilt. BRP just doesn't want to because it probably costs more on labor/parts then to just swap it out. Typical big company approach of course. But smaller companies saw a reason to offer this service since it can be done. So they now offer rebuilding services even on the newer superchargers with OEM parts. Thus, making them like new again at a fraction of the cost of buying a new one.
I happen to own a 2023 Sea-Doo GTX 230 with a supercharger myself. My Scarab boat is a 150HP NON-supercharged engine. My new Sea-Doo has this new supercharger. So every 200h, I'm supposed to take it out and send it off (or bring the whole thing to a dealer of course) and inspect it. I don't ride my ski very hard. I'm more of a touring type of guy. So odds are, my supercharger will be in mint shape and I won't need to rebuild it for many, many years. For me, that's a nice edge. Still get the extra HP for those times I want it, but very little maintenance on it. It's the reason I bought this specific engine HP (along with regular gas vs premium... that's another story). lol
Because these were released in 2017, SOME boats have them, some do not. Depends on when the engine was installed/parts available, etc. 2018 onward were definitely "maintenance free" chargers.
So the question became, what do we have? And hence, that notice came out to help people identify what they have. One of the visible things is a single nut. Literally smack in the middle of the supercharger. Relatively subtle change obviously from what you can see on the picture. But the idea is that you need to look at the very center of the supercharger. This may be easy or hard to do depending on where it's located in your boat vs. boat design. It may require you to remove it entirely. But then you can look at that central nut and see what type of charger it matches.
Hopefully that's clear. Probably more than you expected.
