A combination of a long day and a Founders KBS has knocked me out. I made it home without any issues and wife has given her seal of approval. This was my first time pulling a double axle trailer and it was smooth enough to let me forget I had a trailer behind me. $310 later, I was on the road back to Detroit with 4 new tires. I took the boat directly to an appt at Belle Tire where we determined the tires were original back to 2000. Hopefully that or the guage itself is the problem. I decided to go ahead with the purchase and the seller knocked off a bit of money for a new oil sender unit. This gave some confidence that it wasn't an actual lack of oil pressure and more likely an issue with the guage or sending unit. we did determine that all of the guages on the cluster were doing a pre-start "sweep" except the oil pressure needle. Obviously this was a big concern and I tried to diagnose with a couple of people on the phone with no conclusion.
Everything seemed fine except the oil pressure guage did not move off of zero. Before starting the boat on a fake-a-lake, I did verify that the water had been drained and it looked like clean oil on the stick. It started relatively easily, after being told it hadn't run since last June. The biggest knock cosmetically is a couple of noticeable scratches in the main color line and across the decals. Vinyl is mostly in good shape a couple of cracks in the sunpad but the seats still soft with no tears in the seams. The boat proved to be absolutely filthy with some possible raccoon feces under one of the seats. I left the house at 6AM with an 11AM arrival in Indy. I scrambled on Monday to arrange funds, rent a truck and get everything put together to possibly bring it home today. We made an agreement on price and set a time to meet this morning. Detailed pictures supported that the boat was dirty, buy still in decent shape. Supposedly they used it about 2 per summer for 3 years and then sold the lakehouse last summer. I spoke with seller by mid-day Monday and the story appeared to check out as a second owner who bought the boat to use with his grandkids and it just never panned out. The condition appeared to be a bit rough but it mostly looked sound. This past Sunday night, I found a new listing on Facebook Marketplace for a SSLXI at a price lower than what I had been looking at so far. Obviously, I expect that Covid and the ongoing restrictions has something to do with a lower amount of buyers and sellers on the market. At this point in time, I don't feel like the market for these boats is very good, as I didn't find any of the boats had been sold before I called. I didn't feel the value was there at any higher price than that and I would have a hard time with resale to get close to what I paid. Most of the boats I called on were in the range of $17,500-21,000. I definitely don't mind some work and actually enjoy the project of adding options to the boat. Therefore, I was really trying to keep it under 1,000 hours, avoid the need for vinyl replacement and stick to primary colors. This will be my 5th Malibu with my VTX making it the longest at just over 4 years. I really try to look towards resale, as I know myself that I lose interest and will want something different within a couple of years. Over the last week or so, I had made a list of up to about 15 boats with various options and amount of hours. I finally focused in on the '99-04 Sunsetter LXI with the SV23 diamond hull as boat that could meet my requirements and hopefully not turn into a submarine when my wife is driving with the surf boats out on the lake. I've waffled over the past couple of weeks on older Sunsetters, Sunsetter LXIs, Response LXI's and even the dreaded MC and Nautiques. Maybe we'll surf a bit but my wife and I are losing interest in it and have friends with modern wakeboats if we get the itch. With the sale being complete and my job appearing to be safe for the time-being, I went on the hunt for a "new" boat that would be primarily for me to ski, with the options of pulling tubes and my kids on wakeboards. Covid 19 and a job scare along with an interested buyer made the sale a no-brainer. I loved the VTX but the lack of usage didn't justify the payment with 2 kids coming through high school and headed to college. If you've checked out my other threads, I sold my 2015 VTX a couple of weeks ago with the intention to get back to a cheaper direct drive that I'll primarily use for skiing. Really long post - Summary towards the bottom: I've just finished a long day of travel from the Detroit area to Indianapolis to buy and bring home a 2001 Sunsetter LXI.