Jet ski winterization prices ?

[Myself]

These dealer around here won't even work on two strokes.

They won't here either, but they WILL winterize.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

They won't here either, but they WILL winterize.

They absolutely won't touch anything over ten years old here , no oil changes , no winterizations , it's sad really .

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Seadoo dealer in Alexander city , AL. $318.00 for winterization on a four stroker , includes oil change

Seadoo dealer in Montgmery , AL. $ 379.00 includes oil change does not include oil filter though

Seadoo dealer closest to my side of the lake $ 420.00 includes oil change with filter, dammit for that price It should include free vasoline and reacharound lol.

I am very surprised the place in Alex City is cheaper , I would have thought it would be the other way around, oh well.

So comparatively my price would be $125.00 on the Winterization and $120.00 on the oil change , including the filter so $245.00 total , yep I am way low looks like .

 

[SXIPro]

I don't understand people that don't winterize their own toys. Up here they're charging $25 a foot to shrinkwrap a boat and $300-$400 to winterize the engine. So for a 22 foot pontoon boat, you're talking $850-$950 A YEAR!! Ridiculous. Buy a nice high quality 1200 denier tarp, build a frame out of PVC, some rope and some bungee cords. Done. Pays for itself in less than a season. Replace tarp every 5 years or so if necessary. 15 minutes and $15-$25 tops worth of shop supplies to winterize the outboard. Plus many of the goofs that shrink wrap boats don't even vent it in any way, basically creating a giant petri dish, so when you unwrap your boat in the spring all of your upholstery is covered in mold/mildew. Uggh. Sorry for the threadjack Terry....

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I don't understand people that don't winterize their own toys. Up here they're charging $25 a foot to shrinkwrap a boat and $300-$400 to winterize the engine. So for a 22 foot pontoon boat, you're talking $850-$950 A YEAR!! Ridiculous. Buy a nice high quality 1200 denier tarp, build a frame out of PVC, some rope and some bungee cords. Done. Pays for itself in less than a season. Replace tarp every 5 years or so if necessary. 15 minutes and $15-$25 tops worth of shop supplies to winterize the outboard. Plus many of the goofs that shrink wrap boats don't even vent it in any way, basically creating a giant petri dish, so when you unwrap your boat in the spring all of your upholstery is covered in mold/mildew. Uggh. Sorry for the threadjack Terry....

As far as I am concerned it's a discussion forum and I welcome open discussion ,

For mechanically inclined people yeah Winterizing yourself is a no brainer , however you are failing to take into account how big of an idiot your average sitdown rider is.

I will give you an example, my girlfriends cousin who was a CPA ,just bought a 2011 Seadoo from her brother in law , she didn't test drive it and in fact picked it up from the marina it was stored at , she never even cranked it up , I did not ask her what she paid for it but if she had a lick of common sense she would have run it by me before she bought it.

It's a 2011 model which is a bastard year model, the jet pump it it was only used in 2011 models because it sucked , the IBR module again a one year only module.

I stopped by and put the key on it and I got nothing , I told her to buy a trickle charger and put on it some weeks ago , weeks later she had done nothing with the ski because she couldn't figure out how to hook up the battery charger , go figure , I went by there and hooked up the charger on the ski, two days later either the battery is still dead or there is something else wrong with the ski, now I have to go back by there with a known good battery to proceed with the winterization.

She didn't understand why I couldn't Winterize the ski with a dead battery, I can partially , I can put antifreeze in the exhaust and stabil in the gas and I can pull the spark plugs and shoot fogging oil in the cylinders but that doesn't get any stabilizer into the injectors and fuel pump and it doesn't get the fogging oil in all the places it needs to be at.

If I can't do the job properly I prefer not to do it at all , I am assuming she has a computer and knows how to do a Google search or at least read the instructions that came with the battery charger , but yeah that's the way your typical customers are , totally clueless , they may have book sense but don't have walking around sense and most have no idea what it under the seat on a Watercraft..

Doug took in a ski a few days ago the customer said it stopped firing, he bought the ski and only ran it on the trailer , the guy he bought it from told him not to run it wide open, red flag number two, I told Doug to pull the plugs and run the endoscope down the hole and have a peek , this is a pic of the cylinder, just as I thought it has been seizing up and now needs boring and a new top end which I will not do without also replacing the twenty plus year old crankshaft seals and going through the carbs and replacing the fuel lines , the guy paid $1800 for the ski , realistically he is looking at another $1500 worth of repairs , again I am dealing with idiots.

I will leave you with this gem I saw online the other day :

The amount of idiots in your world is directly proportional to your own level of intelligence , and in the land of the blind the one eyed person is the king !

 

[fx1mark]

My department at work was under I.T. at one time. The head of I.T. had a street bike that had been sitting outside for years and she asked if it could be fixed. I went by her house and looked at it and said I would see what I could do. I got it sorted, which of course included a new battery. The battery was hard to access so I bought her a charger with a pig tail and installed the pig tail on the battery so she it would be easy for her to charge the battery. A couple months later I asked if she had been riding it. She said she couldn't find the charger I bought but had the other end of the pig tail with the clips on it, so she plugged the pig tail together and clipped the clips onto a charger she had but after charging it the battery was dead. I said, " that was kind of clever, but when you do that, the polarity of the clips would be reversed so instead of red to red it would be red to black, so you ruined your new battery"

 

[WFO Speedracer]

My department at work was under I.T. at one time. The head of I.T. had a street bike that had been sitting outside for years and she asked if it could be fixed. I went by her house and looked at it and said I would see what I could do. I got it sorted, which of course included a new battery. The battery was hard to access so I bought her a charger with a pig tail and installed the pig tail on the battery so she it would be easy for her to charge the battery. A couple months later I asked if she had been riding it. She said she couldn't find the charger I bought but had the other end of the pig tail with the clips on it, so she plugged the pig tail together and clipped the clips onto a charger she had but after charging it the battery was dead. I said, " that was kind of clever, but when you do that, the polarity of the clips would be reversed so instead of red to red it would be red to black, so you ruined your new battery"

Yeah it probably charged up in reverse polarity, batteries can do that if they are completely dead and you reverse the leads , if you ever want to really screw with someone , that for sure is one way to do it .

 

[rodry]

I’d say you’re definitely on the right track wanting to raise your prices. For $110, you’re probably covering the basics, but with rising costs, it might be time to bump it up. I’d consider something in the $150-$200 range for two skis, especially since you're just doing the winterization with minimal extra work. The $600-$800 range seems way over the top for what you're offering, so I’d aim to be competitive but also make sure you’re covering your time and supplies. Buying in bulk definitely helps with lowering costs, so you’ll have room to adjust your pricing while still keeping it affordable for customers in your area.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I’d say you’re definitely on the right track wanting to raise your prices. For $110, you’re probably covering the basics, but with rising costs, it might be time to bump it up. I’d consider something in the $150-$200 range for two skis, especially since you're just doing the winterization with minimal extra work. The $600-$800 range seems way over the top for what you're offering, so I’d aim to be competitive but also make sure you’re covering your time and supplies. Buying in bulk definitely helps with lowering costs, so you’ll have room to adjust your pricing while still keeping it affordable for customers in your area.

$200 .OO for two skis, no thanks , I am trying to go up in price not down.