SERIOUS DESIGN FLAW: JET BOAT CLEAN OUT COMPARTMENT

[Greg M]

im on my third Yamaha boat and have a friend that's on his 4th. between the two of us, there has literally been 1 time a plug has blown out.... and it was because a friend of mine put them in and didn't know what he was doing.... ie my fault (I always remove my plugs when leaving the lake, put boat in, forgot to put them back in)

Look, if you dig into the Failed Plug/Blew Out threads and start asking questions, two things seem to pop up every time.... they either had them out and didn't put them in right but "know I had them in right" (its never the guy in the mirror at fault and its not hard to think they are in when they aren't, I'll concede that) or they never had them out, they froze up from neglect, they went thru hell to get one or both out to clear something, and then put it/them back in and they had an issue. The issue in that case was neglect.

Get some clear silicone grease. Remove your clean out plugs. Run some grease around the rubber lip. Makes them sliding in fully extremely easy.
See all that gunk and algea and mud and lake residue on your plugs? exactly, clean them off (or keep them clean in the first place), spray them down with silicone spray. Do the above, and make sure they are seated.
Lastly remember, youre dealing with tight tolerances, this isn't a brute force procedure and if youre straining to put a plug in you are doing it wrong! Its a finesse installation! Do it right with a plug that isn't junked up, they seat right in.

Its a moving part, it requires occasional maintenance. You clean the outside, you lube the bearings, you change the oil. Add 5 minutes to your todo list once a month and it should be problem solved, or problem never is created as far as plugs are concerned.

 

[Geoff Cooper]

No ulterior motive, no dark side, just a new boat owner who didn't know the driving characteristics of his new boat, a plug blew and he almost sank. It has happened to others, and will happen again. I have conversed with the owner and he isn't making this up to simply bash Yamaha. He is simply raising a flag (that we are all well aware of since we are members here) about the problem with clean out plugs that we all admit exists...the blow out unpredictably. If you don't know this, and don't sense your boat is driving strangely, then you risk sinking your boat. Pretty simple really. Of course like @txav8r points out, we are all much more informed than a new boater, many of us have bought and personally installed counter measures to prevent this tragedy from happening to us. But that in itself supports his position that this is a design flaw. Whether you agree with him or not is up to you. But I posit that if you have pins installed you admit that there is a problem with the plugs....the level of that problem can be argued from one extreme to another (recall level design issue....to nuisance). Apparently mother Yamaha agreed to the tune of thousands of dollars that his situation was pretty bad.....which in and of itself admits their ownership of the problem (which I'm glad they did - this is the first time I've heard they fessed up).

I see where your coming from but according to other members who have replied to this post it appears he is complaining about a problem that doesn't relate to that particular model he is describing and to approach a problem with full blown criticism when this website contains many very happy owners who would be only to pleased to help his situation if his comments didn't fly in the face of fact astounds me, He attacks Yamaha on a website that only does it's best to help members with there problems, We all have our gripes about Yamaha in my case it's not about Yamaha Factory it's about greedy franchises who charge well above Yamaha's recommended list price because they know they can get away with it, There is much information on this and other sites and without sounding callous if all else fails read the instructions, I cant believe that someone purchased a new boat and put it on the water without going through the checks, I'm sure when he purchased the Boat the Agent would have gone through everything with him and probably taken him out for a run or been there to assist, I may knock the Yamaha agent here but i must say that they always go out with a customer to show them the ropes when a new Boat is delivered and also i may add they offer the same service with any outboard motor that is purchased, I find it very hard to believe that someone would take a new Boat out without having someone with them who has had previous experience with that particular craft, It's not just a very silly thing to do but down right dangerous putting himself and i presume maybe his family in a situation that could have had serious life threatening consequences that could have been so easily avoided.

 

[txav8r]

@Geoff Cooper , all "agents" do not go out when a boat is delivered. And all agents are not created equal. Also, when a new boat owner goes on a demo ride or delivery ride, they are new boat owners, not really aware of all they are being told or absorbing all they are being told. And these demo rides are orchestrated to get the job done and are not only a demo ride, they are a disclaimer, as is the manual. Everyone listens differently, learns differently, and retains differently. I believe that a boat operator should watch the DVD that is delivered with the boat and READ THE MANUAL multiple times. (pre owned boats have been known to have been resold without either) But even those things may not prepare a guy to understand blowouts or what will happen if you don't stop immediately after a high speed blowout, or why you should never restart the engine without checking for water in the engine compartment or how high the water may have been. These are things that are learned here, Yamaha or their dealerships don't comment on the issue directly. I remember my dealer telling me, to never run the boat without the plug installed, as does the manual and DVD. I remember him (and the other publications) telling me never to run water into the engine without the engine running. But do the two of those instructions cover it? Of course not. There are issues with any boat or piece of machinery that require experience and knowledge to understand. And the more you understand, the less likely you will be caught by surprise. But this and other issues are not a one size fits all. Refraining from judgement and narrow-mindedness is necessary, because things can happen that just haven't happened to you yet and may never happen to you...but the earth is not flat, is it?

 

[Geoff Cooper]

@Geoff Cooper , all "agents" do not go out when a boat is delivered. And all agents are not created equal. Also, when a new boat owner goes on a demo ride or delivery ride, they are new boat owners, not really aware of all they are being told or absorbing all they are being told. And these demo rides are orchestrated to get the job done and are not only a demo ride, they are a disclaimer, as is the manual. Everyone listens differently, learns differently, and retains differently. I believe that a boat operator should watch the DVD that is delivered with the boat and READ THE MANUAL multiple times. (pre owned boats have been known to have been resold without either) But even those things may not prepare a guy to understand blowouts or what will happen if you don't stop immediately after a high speed blowout, or why you should never restart the engine without checking for water in the engine compartment or how high the water may have been. These are things that are learned here, Yamaha or their dealerships don't comment on the issue directly. I remember my dealer telling me, to never run the boat without the plug installed, as does the manual and DVD. I remember him (and the other publications) telling me never to run water into the engine without the engine running. But do the two of those instructions cover it? Of course not. There are issues with any boat or piece of machinery that require experience and knowledge to understand. And the more you understand, the less likely you will be caught by surprise. But this and other issues are not a one size fits all. Refraining from judgement and narrow-mindedness is necessary, because things can happen that just haven't happened to you yet and may never happen to you...but the earth is not flat, is it?

I don't recall saying anything about what all agents do i only referred to the Yamaha dealer who is here if you read what i wrote and i said the Agent where he got the Boat would probably help or assist, Although i really do sympathize with what happened and are happy that Yamaha sorted it for him i feel that he is a very lucky guy in 2 ways 1 he's still here and 2 Yamaha were good enough to get the job sorted, A lesson learned i believe maybe the heading ...A serious design flaw... doesn't represent what really happened, I've had a plug blow out on 2 occasions but just replaced it and carried on accepting that it was my own fault it happened i let the guys at the marina launch the Boat and never rechecked the plugs before i went out it's easily done, As for your comment on the engine flushing without starting the engine, I have an HO engine here at the moment that's just detonated because the guy was distracted and left the hose running without thinking, I've took a few Photos and was thinking about doing a post on it, We will see I'm waiting for spares at the moment so as you can imagine it takes a lifetime, I have another also an HO engine where it just had a service and went out and the end of the spark plug broke and that's also destroyed piston and valves, No come back on the agent they didn't want to know, Such is life.

 

[Williamsone46]

Apparently mother Yamaha agreed to the tune of thousands of dollars that his situation was pretty bad.....which in and of itself admits their ownership of the problem (which I'm glad they did - this is the first time I've heard they fessed up).

Because they opted to pay "to the tune of thousands of dollars" for the situation doesn't mean they have taken ownership that the clean outs are a problem or a design flaw, but rather they are simply taking care of a customer. I have seen Yamaha pay "tune of thousands of dollars" for repairs that were no where close to warranty related hundreds of times simply to take care of a customer. Don't mistake Yamaha goodwill for admission of a design flaw/defect.

 

[rkluck]

I think we can all agree that there are issues especially around the plugs. These boats should be "user friendly" (anyone should be able to own and drive them safely with no concerns) like a car or most other boats. Yes I know there can be recalls but we haven't had any yet. Everyone does handle the problems differently! All in all I usually don't have issues (although a small one right now that I hope is resolved). The boat just runs great, is beautiful and we love the layout! Love the boat! That is probably why Yamaha can get away with it because we love these boats so much we continue to buy more! HA

 

[Julian]

@Geoff Cooper -he inititally posted the wrong boat model as he didn't have the boat long, and its been a while since he owned it - that minor boo boo was fixed a couple of pages back. My dealer/agent never said a word about the plugs and risks with them. I learned from others online. There are thousands of Yamaha owners who will never see this site as they aren't online savy like us.

This is a great discussion, and the key to it for me is simple. Designing a plug that can have some pretty extreme positive and negative pressures put on it, and only have 2 small 2 inches "dogs" or lips to hold it in was pretty stupid in my mind. There is no reason they couldn't have come up with something MUCH more substantial to hold the plugs in. Secondly, it wouldn't be hard at all to raise the fixed height of the pump access a foot so that if there is a blowout and the boat takes on water, the level of the pump hole doesn't go below the waterline (where the exhaust hose connects to the pump).

I do agree that diving into a forum with a negative, all caps post wasn't the best way to begin, but since we are now on page 6 of discussion on the topic, I guess he achieved his goal of drawing attention to the problem.

All of that said, I've never had a blowout! Hope I never do. @Greg M plenty of people have had blowout where they know the plugs were installed correctly. There have even been blow outs where pins where installed, and we have members who's pins have prevented blow out because they go to take the plugs out after running, and the plug mechanism is UNLOCKED, but the pins prevented the dogs from retracting. So this isn't only a user error.

@Williamsone46 Mother Yamaha will never admit this is a problem, and of course all they were doing was making things right. @JetBoatPilot and @Cobra Jet Steering LLC are both happy that they haven't fixed it as they both sell solutions to the problem, design flaw, defect, issue - feature? . You and I will have to agree to disagree on this one. If boat manufacturers were held to the same standard as cars I do believe a recall would have been forced on this years ago. Until that happens we will all know what to do - but those thousands of owners who don't read online about their boats had better pay close attention, not lend their boats out, and generally operate it at risk....

 

[Williamsone46]

@Julian agree to disagree we will!

 

[dustinjean]

why do threads like these not just get deleted?

 

[Julian]

why do threads like these not just get deleted?

For the same reason we don't delete any threads unless the OP asks us to and has a good reason. This is a legitimate issue this boater had with the clean out plug design. We would never consider censoring something like this.

 

[txav8r]

Nope, this thread isn't subject to deletion, not anything here except for a good education. The varied opinions alone justify the existence of threads like this. While some of us may not agree with the motivation or delivery, it is in anyones right to put it out there. Just like it is someones right to disagree with it. We will draw the line pretty fast at hate. We all have different viewpoints, and this thread displays that very well. Thanks to everyone that shared their thoughts on the subject, or on the subject of the relevance for that matter. It is the sum of all opinions that drive most of what we like about these boats.

 

[Speedling]

I'm gonna go trade in for a scarab because I have clean out ports!
JK