What do you pay for winterizing?

For those of you who take your boat to a dealer or some other service facility, what do you pay for winterization (engine, ballast, heater, etc)?


....and if you work for a dealer, about what do you charge?

I just called my local Malibu dealer and they charge $120.95 --- basic winterization.

$211.95 with oil change, tranny fluid change.

I just paid $291.71 for the boat, ballast, and heater winterization. I'm in the metro Detroit area in Michigan.

Naw,
You are a dealer guy... do the shops you work in or around charge for "shop supplies"? I was looking at my receipt and it shows $13.70 for said supplies. There is no description for what makes up these charges, but I can tell you that they also charged me $53.95 in "parts" (fogging oil, antifreeze, and stabil). Does this sound normal? I guess I got to call them back and figure out what goes into "shop supplies".

$29.88 Brake Inspection
$185.76 Replace trailer wheel bearing oil
$137.88 AMSOIL Synthetic oil & filter
$59.88 V-drive trans oil change
$99.88 Winterize Run & fog, Fuel stabilize, Drain block - Fill w/ anti-freeze

Fluid service is steeper than I think is reasonable.

Ed, Call 911! You just got raped.
$29.88 for a guy to slide under your trailer on a creeper and look at your brakes with a flash light. 5 min.
$185.76 to drain and fill your hubs with 90wt oil. Probably took 15 min.
$137.88 for AMSOIL & filter. I don't know how much that oil costs, but that sounds high. 15 min
$59.88 4 quarts of oil and 20 min.
$99.88 to pour a few oz. of stabil in your tank, suck up some anti-freeze(Which means they probably didn't drain your block), and spray fogging oil into the intake. 15 mins.

$513.28 for 1 hour 10 min tops.

I do mine at home in under an hour every year. I've been using the same bottle of stabil, and the same can of fogging oil for three year's. I only have to buy a few gallons of r/v anti-freeze.
I guess I'm to poor to pay that much for something I can do at home.

I do it myself...wow, didn't know so many people paid to do it.

I do it myself...wow, didn't know so many people paid to do it.

First year with a new boat. I was trying to support the local dealer and keep the boat well covered while still under warranty.

The only two things that really concern me are flushing the radiator, and I’m not sure how you do the fogging on a MPI engine. My trailer has oil bearings, they’re new to me. I did see the set screw on the hub. Looks like you open the set screw to drain. There must be a second screw for each hub somewhere.

Oil is pretty darn cheap. The dealer is pushing synth oil. Personally I prefer to change regular oil more often.

When I bought the boat the dealer told me how much lower the cost of maintaining an inboard was compared to and I/O. I’ve never paid this much before. They also didn’t get around to replacing the impeller.

I don’t think they’ll see much more of my boat.

Ed - no radiator in a boat

I do it myself too. it is painfully easy.

winterizing is extremely easy; if you can assemble your kids' toys, you can probably handle it. i always wonder why people go thru the hassle of taking the boat in and picking it up, much less paying the steep prices for the service. it's also a good way to get familiar with your boat, and you might have a better chance of dealing with mechanical issues on the water later.

if it's any consolation, Amsoil is about $7.50/qt at the place i buy mine. that means the stealership is probably charging at least $12/qt, so there's about $60+ of your oil change.

Edward - does your boat have closed cooling? if so, it does have a radiator, but you don't have to worry about that part.

Tim - do you even need to winterize down there?

Jeff, at a car dealer shop supplies is a percentage of the labor total. this covers stuff like rags,oil disposal, floor dry,.....

Letting the shop do it tranfers liability to them ( you always here the horror story of a guy forgetting to do one little thing and cracking a block over the winter)....and if anyhting goes wrong with your motor under warranty, it's one more issue the dealer could potentially bring up. Aside from the oil change, I let dealer do there normal service and take the price gouging knowing if anything goes wrong, there the first to get a call. FYI ...I don't winterize...I live in Texas, but did/do get scrwed on service intervals.

trace, i used to live in the midwest.

closed cooling has an inline heat exchanger if I recall correctly, not a radiator. ed's profile says OH though, so closed cooling is unlikely. ED let us know whats up!

I second letting the marina do it. I work at a boat storage facility and two of the mechanics both bought boats this year that the person winterized themselves, and the blocks cracked. I also got a free waverunner beacause the guy winterized wrong. Plus I get discount on any thing from the marina.

how do you do the fogging and drain all the water out of the block. i have sky supreme 2004

Tim is correct, and I should've said that the exchanger itself will likely need draining when winterizing. the heat exchanger *should* contain antifreeze, though, just like a radiator.

liability is a valid concern. i've had generally bad experiences & shoddy work from dealers, so i'm jaded. i personally trust myself to do a more thorough and careful job than any of the techs that have done work on my boat in the past.

my dealer will do a 12 point winterization for 165, and that includes oil and filter on both the engine and transmission. Does not include the ballast tanks, plugs, or air filter, but those are very easy. Basically, the only reason I take it in is because my boat cannot run on a fake a lake, and I don't feel like buying 40' of reinforced hose so I can hook it up to the spigot.

Tim and Trace, my bad, I said flushing the radiator should have said flushing the cooling system.

Gabriel, I think that you’re supposed to fog the engine while you’re trying to get it to suck up a load of coolant, not sure how you know when you’re done.

What are you supposed to do the ballast tanks? I don't think my dealer did anything.

I moved from Dayton to Columbus some years ago and so was between boat dealerships servicing my boat and engine. I lost my boat engine halfway through the first season in Columbus, the engine block was cracked. There were discussions between the new dealership and Merc, nobody came out and said it but it sounded like freeze damage. Since I was between dealerships it was pretty difficult to layout any blame, I ate the cost of the engine replacement and lost a big portion of the boating season.

Even given that experience I’ve been reluctant to do the winterizing. My new boat was a demo, and it didn’t come with a Merc owners manual. The Centurion rep photo copied a manual for me. It’s pretty difficult to figure out how to purge the cooling system given the operators manual. The manual I have says that there’s manual air pump mounted some place on the engine. You’re supposed to use this air pump to purge the water out of the engine. I looked all over the place but couldn’t find the darn pump. Not finding the pump makes me worry about performing the rest of the purging process.

Well, I jsut called and they wanted 250 for something that I can do for the cost of some oil and Dextron.

If I lived up North I might think about having someone do it but the boat is in a heated garage in NC so no real problem unless we get an ice storm.

i'm with trace, do it right, do it yourself

Mine was $160 for a V-Drive

Winterizing???? What is that.

Actually $180.00 (60 gallons @ $3.00/ gallon

I live in California. We just fill with gas and keep on goin!!!

Andreas

(Message edited by andreas on October 27, 2005)

what's winterizing?

I love reading the stuff on being able to hold the dealership/shop liable if they forget to do something and/or if it's done incorrectly...it's just not a valid weight to the benefits of doing it yourself. If you're scared of forgetting a step, make a list and check it off before, during and after the first time, it's that easy and you'll only have to make it once. Do you really think most shops keep a list handy of every tiny step they do on every boat? They should, but probably don't. The other thing about liability is that even if they are a GREAT shop and happily repair their own mistakes, you're still looking at excessive downtime. How much is it worth to you to let someone else do it only to find out it's going to need to spend the first 3 months of a BRAND NEW season in the shop when you try and start it on that first nice day? That alone is worth doing it yourself to me.

$86. I do it myself. Oil, filter, antifreeze flush in engine, some antifreeze in ballast tanks, new suds, new wax, fuel stabilizer. I will change the vdrive and trans fluid in the spring.

tony, my dealer can get me in and out in a day or two max. If ended up being a larger warranty issue on the motor , I take to another authorized indmar repair faciltiy that can get it done in a week. I've never had my boat in the shop longer than 5 days...even in the peak of the summer. That includes a 7k insurance claim wher I hit a sand bar. You should not be 100% dependent on your dealer for repairs/service.

I just had mine done, they winterized changed the oil, fogged etc....$225.00

Mine cost $175.00