False/wrong readings in the depth finder?

[Jacques]

Has anyone experienced an issue where you are in 6ft of water but your depth finder is reading 65ft?


Mine worked like a charm for a year and suddenly started displaying like depths about 10 times of the real ones. Only works well one of every 5 outings.


This is the standard depth finder that comes with the 195 HOI and have not been repaired or changed. When fails, happens at any speed, even stopped and idle.


I shared my issue with our “very helpful” dealer MM, here in South Florida, and they don’t have any idea of what is happening, so looks like I would be the one paying for them to learn (The one year warranty already expired) and I cannot afford that, I’d rather learn and do it myself, however I haven’t been able to find similar cases to start with.


I kindly ask for some advice, clue, information or experience on this matter.


Thanks!

 

[pagekl]

Funny, just this past Friday I got a reading of being in 85 feet of water when I was in less than 3 feet. Never seen that before, but it seemed to work fine afterwards.

 

[Yan Masse]

Never happend to me

 

[Jacques]

I just wanted to share what I found so I hope that helps you if that issue come across.

While doing the oil, filter and spark plugs change, I decided to spend some minutes looking for the location of the depth finder and possible source of issues. I was able to find a circular white spot on the port side under the engine block, which looks suspicious, after looking under the engine I felt something was loose and eureka, found a black device that was moving freely under the engine, which cannot be something good. After checking the part number, it was the depth finder. After preparing the hull and the depth finder and after some 4200, time to cure and tested, I can say the issue has been resolved.

The best part of it is that I had that issue reported to the dealer and after having the boat there, they told me they need to research more because the depth finder for these boats was encapsulated within the hull. Well, I didn't know either where it was but it does not took too much time to find it when I started looking for it.