Demo Ride Necessary?

[Four R's]

How important is a demo ride or is there essentially no difference in rides of equal size boats with similar motors etc. How important are strakes?

[gramps]

Demo rides are good if it's available. When you buy at the Boat Show, which is usually in the Winterand is usually the best price, then those rides just are not available.

We bought our Tritoon with strakes at the boat show without a ride and our boat performs better than I expected. We have owned 3 toons and a tritoon with strakes is the only way to go.

[MichaelB]

If used, absolutely get a ride. I would have walked away from my purchase if I would have insisted on a ride. Everything can be fixed, and we're all good now.

For new, it depends on your experience. If you've only been on a toon a couple of times, and not different models, you need to do some demos. 10 minutes on a toon is very telling.

[ronb]

You need to take it for a ride to check out how it operates, how to operate it, and to make sure everything is functional. Make sure there aren't any weird vibrations, possibly even do some calculations to see if it is propped to your liking (not over or under propped) make sure it starts OK. You might not like the view.

I test drove a Bennington that had captains seats on the passenger side front of the boat which had a huge sticker stating they were not to be used while in motion, and that forced all the passengers to sit directly in front of the driver, effectively blocking a large portion of my view. That same pontoon (2 tubes) had strakes on both sides of the tubes and I didn't like how it handled high speed corners (high speed for me is greater than 15mph ), when I turned it really dug in and made the craft lean toward the outside of the turn. The prop also experienced a lot of blow out, not sure if that was due to where my passengers were sitting, the motor height or some other reason, but before I'd have bought it, I would have gotten it checked out.

And you may find little things, like blown speakers or that the radio has no auxilary input for your iPhone... (The Bennington did not have aux input) It also did not have LED courtesy/night lights.

Or you may find that it has a structural issue, again picking on that poor Bennington.... when I would hit waves that were tall enough to hit the floor stringers, water would come all the way through the floor and puddle/pool making the carpet all wet.

This is not bashing in any way shape or form Benningtons in general, I just test drove one that had seen a rough life and was poorly maintained. Externally it looked great! You can see pictures of it over here
Good Day to be on the Lake, bad day on the lake... page 2, about halfway down..

Take it for a ride, you won't regret it.
-ron

[Bryden24shp]

I wouldn't buy one without a shake down ride. After selling our last Baja, and decided to go pontoon, we had no idea what we were looking for. At that time, there were just a few lame forums, no real good info on any 'Performance' pontoons. We looked for months. After narrowing it to 3 brands, we went to the Lake of the Ozarks to test drive the 3 we were choosing. After a few phone calls, all 3 dealers worked with each other and met us at the State Park Marina, with the 3 boats in the water at the same time. One new he was gonna make a sale, but which one? After driving them, one did... The fun part was watching them have their own little "shootout". It was fun watching them beat the snot out of the boats. What was meant to be an hour or so water time, turned out to be all day.
What happened after that is another story. But they were all very willing to go out of their way, to do this for us, is the point here.

[wrakoski]

I recommend it....I upgraded my outboard to a 250 after I demoed the boat with the 150.

[realter]

Ademo ride may have saved me $38,000.

[serpa4]

Don't buy without a ride. I had a brand new Stingray open bow that I didn't test. Worst mistake of the decade. All kinds of issues, performance, shaking, guages not working, steering hard and vibrates, etc. NEVER again. I assumed since it was brand new....

[bassn386]

Someone posted about not being able to get a demo ride if you buy at one of the winter boat shows. Make it a part of the contract that the sale is not final until you take a demonstration ride on the model you are buying.
You wouldn't buy a car or truck without taking a ride, would you?

[Kalop]

USED = I agree, absolute MANDATORY test ride.