Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

I'm trading in my 14' bass boat for a pontoon and have to choose btn. Premier and Sun Tracker.

My main use on a smallish lake (1620 acres) will be fishing and taking out senior adults for a spin. Not expecting to pull water skiers; only tubbing one at a time.

What questions should I be asking the dealers? What size motor do I need?

I can't provide anything except personal opinion, based only upon seeing each type, while looking for the one I bought.
Premier rocks. Looks like luxury. Will probably get you laid. Oh, nevermind, you said something about old folks cruising. Perhaps ask which one has a toilet!

I guess the size motor to pull tubes will depend on boat size and total weight aboard. Rumor says minimum of 90hp. I figure as the elderly folks 'stroke out' and have heart attacks from flipping the tube, your total boat weight will decrease by the hour.... A bigger question is, *how* do you plan to run their oxygen lines from the boat to the towed tube?


I'm SO going to burn for those 'old folks' jokes - but, I AM just goofing off, answering the OP's question...

Doc as an old fart I ban you to giving enemas to fat 70 year old men

I love my Tracker but if I could afford a fancy Premier I would have one

lakerunner696 wrote:Doc as an old fart I ban you to giving enemas to fat 70 year old men

I love my Tracker but if I could afford a fancy Premier I would have one

Uuummmm... I'm going to have to alter that ban..... I want to be banned from giving those enemas!
(thank God for nurses..... They get to do that stuff!

But, I do agree, if I could afford it, I'd have a premier, manitou, Avalon, or Bennington... Triple logs, and about 200 horses to plow it thru the water.

hamcores wrote:I'm trading in my 14' bass boat for a pontoon and have to choose btn. Premier and Sun Tracker.

I can't compare my toon with a Tracker as I have never been on one of them. Just speaking about the Premier, I can tell you I love mine. I traded in a 19' 5.0L V8 open bow runabout on my 22' 4.3L V6 pontoon. Many on here wouldn't have an I/O like I have, but I enjoy it. It does make for a shorter boating season, though.

A couple of things you might consider. I know the Premier has what some have referred to as "plush" seating. I can tell you every seat on my boat is very comfortable, and if you are hauling seniors, they may thank you for that. My parents are in their 70's, and my mom loves riding our toon.

As for tubing, if you are not interested in going fast, but simply having fun, my brother has a Bennington with a 60hp Mercury Big Foot motor. I wouldn't recommend anything smaller than that. Those who tube behind his have an enjoyable ride, but he complains he would like to have more speed sometimes. He has been able to kneeboard behind his, and seems to do OK.

Can't help you too much on what questions to ask for comparisons. The biggest thing is to ask yourself what all you want out of the toon and then look at what boat fits the bill best. We have a Premier and we love it. A couple of the things that made us pick Premier were the comfort of the seats, ability to have a pump out head, the boat layout and some other small things.

When you got as close as possible to being able to comparing apples to apples we also found out the price difference wasn't much and we felt some areas of the Premier were of higher quality - areas such as the seating, vinyl, carpet, helm area, etc.

All that said, a Sun tracker probably would have been our second choice as we like their seats second best from a backside comfort perspective. Since we bought our Premier a couple folks in our area have bought new toons and went with Premier, two of those folks moved from Sun tracker to Premier in large part for all the reasons we went that route. But they were also happy with their Trackers it was just time for a new boat and they like the Premiers better at this point.

I have only owned a Suntracker, but I was on a couple Premiers before and after my purchase. Although I love my Tracker, I would not hesitate in purchasing a Premier either.

If you want to tube....even with (1) person, go with a 90 HP minimum. My Merc 60 is not large enough to really get movin with a tube, not to mention a handful of ppl on board.

I recently purchased a 2011 E-Tec 115 after just one in a half seasons because the 60 was not big enough for me.

Best bet is look them both over and buy the one you like the best. Sure, we all would like one of the "upscale" toons, but the Trackers are good boats and I think just about every BPS store is a Sun tracker dealer. If there is a Premiere dealer nearby, that's great.
I own a Playcraft, and i think they rank at the summit with maybe Avalon and South Bay. Then again when I called Playcraft to replace my lounge seats from 1993, they quoted me $2K...for ONE seat! OUCH!!
I got replacements elsewhere.
Make sure you know how you want to use your toon, include things that you might like to try, then find a boat that fits.