***WARNING*** 2015-18 YAMAHA “AR” BOAT OWNERS WITH FORWARD SWEPT WAKEBOARD TOWERS

[Betik]

I have to tell you, ....... my job as a federal agent ....

What? nice meeting you folks.
Me love America, now back to shadow

 

[Bruce]

my job as a federal agent

Cuban Rum? I don’t know anything about that stuff.

If any of your buddies heard the Rum Runner conversation of 2016 on the VHF that was @shane hric’s boat. Certainly not any boat named Propless.

But seriously, thank you for your service.

 

[4wheeldeal]

Oh FYI.. not a 24ft but Yamaha is replacing my tower on my 19ft ar192. You can't screw it down on the one side with out force and the tower doesn't line up correctly.

 

[J-RAD]

Oh FYI.. not a 24ft but Yamaha is replacing my tower on my 19ft ar192. You can't screw it down on the one side with out force and the tower doesn't line up correctly.

Issue from the factory or developed over time?

 

[4wheeldeal]

Issue from the factory or developed over time?

From the moment I got it home. I played with everything and took it back two weeks later to have them look at it. I got the boat new last year so still under warranty.

 

[FloJet]

From the moment I got it home. I played with everything and took it back two weeks later to have them look at it. I got the boat new last year so still under warranty.

Good deal

 

[ThatJeepGuy]

While I'm happy for you I'm learning warranty means nothing to some dealers and all of Yamaha ....

 

[Betik]

Oh FYI.. not a 24ft but Yamaha is replacing my tower on my 19ft ar192. You can't screw it down on the one side with out force and the tower doesn't line up correctly.

that is because no one was injured from your tower......

 

[4wheeldeal]

that is because no one was injured from your tower......

I don't understand?

 

[Betik]

my take is that Yamaha was concerned that by fixing the tower it was admitting liability for @swatski 's medical bills associated with tower landing on this head/shoulder. So they put the blame on him for not get a PhD. on how to rotate a screw clockwise.

 

[4wheeldeal]

my take is that Yamaha was concerned that by fixing the tower it was admitting liability for @swatski 's medical bills associated with tower landing on this head/shoulder. So they put the blame on him for not get a PhD. on how to rotate a screw clockwise.

Okay I gotcha, yeah my Towers about an inch off and you have to force it down and then screw it in by holding the tower down and having somebody else screwed in.

 

[swatski]

Okay I gotcha, yeah my Towers about an inch off and you have to force it down and then screw it in by holding the tower down and having somebody else screwed in.

Yeah, Yamaha customer service lawyers call it "operator error".

Just messing with ya! Betik started this, again.


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[Betik]

Sorry @swatski i am. It planing on letting this go anytime soon. There is one thing for Yamaha to deny a random warranty claim , and another one to deny yours . Seening all the trouble you went through at bimini to make sure that Yamaha can do their quality control on their towers and still give you the middle finger. It makes me so very upset like you have no idea.
I should listened to Kate and picked in the middle of the night and dropped it a couple of miles off shore

 

[NewBoater]

Does the 242 limited and limited S have the faulty tower?

 

[seanmclean]

Limited S has a different mechanism.

 

[swatski]

Does the 242 limited and limited S have the faulty tower?

Nope. The LS towers have been solid, so far, and so are all the big E-Series towers. Those have a different base and a different locking mechanism.

I so wish I knew the AR tower would be a problem - when I was buying! At this point, for me it's too late to swap boats, I have fixed and improved the AR240 to my liking and turned her into what I really wanted, she is now arguably one of the better 24' yammies around, so I'm not itching to change. I would still swap just the tower (with a big E-Series) but the 10k price tag for those is kind of absurd.

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[Jonathan Pisarczyk]

@Betik, you are correct, my tower seems to be ok. Other than tagging @1948Isaac for his input early on, I’ve been on the sidelines till now because I agree with most of what has been said to this point. Although I’ve been away from the quality engineering / failure analysis field for many years, I can’t help but see this situation from this perspective, but before I get into this, I need to say that I’m still shaken by what happened to @swatski and his family. He was the only adult in his boat and this could have killed/paralyzed him, in front of his kids.

I’m not a lawyer, so I’m not sure if there are legal reasons as to why Yamaha has taken the stance that they’ve taken. One thing that I’ve personally experienced in a different industry, is that when my builder built me a new home in Texas 5 years ago, there were many items that were not covered under warranty that had me shaking my head, BUT, the builder responded to all of them saying “Although this is not a warrantable item, as a courtesy, we will correct it for you.” I kind of expected that Yamaha would be able to address this in a similar manner.

Ok, so this is what we know so far.

1. Swatski’s tower almost killed him. The female threads in the tower stripped.

2. Yamaha says that the root cause is a cross-threaded bolt.

3. Yamaha has not shared their report with Swatski.

4. Yamaha is not going to help Swatski.

5. 4wheeldeal shared that one of his bolts was cross-threaded when he received his new AR, and Yamaha corrected it under warranty.

6. ThatJeepGuy had to replace one of his bolts because it apparently stripped.

7. MajorSmackdown’s bolts were loose after the crossing.

8. Mine were tight after the crossing, but I did manage to snug one down by reefing on it with one hand and turning it about 4 degrees; while doing so, I was kind of wondering if I was overtightening.

I think that many things can cause these bolts to back out:

1. If they’re not properly tightened to start with.

2. Temperature fluctuations.

3. Vibrations and forces from towing, and regular use.

I think that these bolts can be easily cross-threaded, especially by someone who does not care about the boat who may just be going through the motions while doing their job; I say this because I think that these boats have too many minor quality issues when they leave the factory/dealership. If a customer receives their boat with cross-threaded bolts, how are they to know any different?

I think that if the bolts are not cross-threaded and they are tight, there will be no issues with the tower. If there is movement, then the tower will fail via the same mechanism as a slide hammer. If the scenario involves a cross-threaded bolt, then the failure will happen quicker as the threads are already compromised.

I doubt that any dealership has the ability to properly diagnose the root cause in Swatski’s case. I would expect that testing to see if the material hardness of the male and female surfaces is in spec, and verifying that the diameters of the bolt and nut are in spec should be done as a minimum. If I were Swatski, I’d consider taking this to an independent lab to have it analyzed, but this would be destructive. As an extra aside, I once worked in a factory that made aluminum parts for the auto industry; all of the parts were heat treated in order to harden the aluminum after tooling was done. Improper heat treating could be a likely root cause.

As a minimum, I hope that Yamaha will notify all of its dealerships of the risk of cross-threading, and of the importance of making sure that the tower fasteners are appropriately tightened, and that this important information is properly communicated to all AR customers. I believe that Swatski already mentioned that a warning label could help highlight the risk.

Lastly, I think that Yamaha is making a big error in judgement in not helping correct Swatski’s situation. Yamaha could learn a thing or two from Shoreland’r and from Carlisle when it comes to standing behind their product and fostering customer loyalty. On that note, @swatski might be better off working with the tower manufacturer directly.

It could have been worse, and I'm very thankful that it wasn't.
Amen to that.

I've got a 2015 AR240 and my starboard mount started to make a rattling noise in small chop. I stopped the boat and was able to tighten the screw a little bit. The rattling noise still persisted. After getting the boat on the trailer I crawled under the rear seat and was able to get a quarter turn on the two large brass bolts that hold the main tower mount to the fiber glass.

I'm not sure if the rattling noise is gone yet since I haven't been out again. I'm now more concerned about my tower failing.

Has anyone considered a class action lawsuit? @swatski what did you end up doing to fix your tower? Do you have new pictures?

 

[haknslash]

@Jonathan Pisarczyk this is what @swatski ended up doing to fix his 2015+ AR240 Tower Fix

 

[4wheeldeal]

My new Tower came in finally. It was backordered, just waiting to get installed but I'm using the boat so it might have to wait till September. It doesn't screw down on the one side say the towers worked and that's the reason they send it up in the screw down okay for now.

 

[swatski]

I've got a 2015 AR240 and my starboard mount started to make a rattling noise in small chop. I stopped the boat and was able to tighten the screw a little bit. The rattling noise still persisted. After getting the boat on the trailer I crawled under the rear seat and was able to get a quarter turn on the two large brass bolts that hold the main tower mount to the fiber glass.

I'm not sure if the rattling noise is gone yet since I haven't been out again. I'm now more concerned about my tower failing.

Has anyone considered a class action lawsuit? @swatski what did you end up doing to fix your tower? Do you have new pictures?

What @haknslash posted^^^ has been the fix that holds up fine in my boat ~150 hours later.

These two issues (the wheel knob bolt loosening up, and the two under-the-hull-cap bolts loosening up) are distinct. The fix above kind of works for both.

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