Contender Boats Contender PRIVTY!! Defense on warranty claim Internet, Florida

Contender Breaches Warranty - Chapter One

We have been fishing offshore Florida and the Bahamas for 20 years and doing tournaments for most of these years. We have held USCG Captains licenses, ran charters, operated air boats, race boats, basically every type of boat there is. Our fishing team, Bloodstream was a loyal customer of Contender Boats until we had a problem.

Our two prior Contender boats were 31s. We never had problems with them other than the normal stress cracks that Contenders get. We still own a 31with a 1000 hours and it only has the normal stress cracks that Contender s get. When we decided to purchase a new Contender 33 is when the problems began. While ordering our new contender, my two partners and I went to the dealership on a day that the VP of Sales from Contender was present. Our meeting consisted of us three, the dealer salesman and the VP of Sales from Contender (at this point mentioning their names adds no value to the story and only brings negative attention to them). They told us that the Yamaha 300 HPDIs had some problems the 1st year out but now are great engines. We where told during this meeting that these 300 HPDIs where lighter, faster, just a tad louder and hardly uses any oil unless you are WFO. This all sounded very good and, contrary to what is speculated, our style of fishing east central Florida focuses on long range trips (Tuna fishing 80+ miles out) where comfort and fuel range and consumption is a consideration. To further convince us to go with the 300 HPDIs they conducted a conference call to the Contender factory for us to hear first hand about Joes son who also selected 300 HPDIs for his 33t vessel. During this call they preceded to share performance numbers that we should expect to see with our new vessel that the boat would run 65 mph loaded. Related to long range trips and fuel consumption this combination of 300 HPDIs on a 33t should get 1.3 to 1.4 at 40-45 mph. This discussion about > getting 5-7 mph faster with the same fuel and low oil consumption strongly influenced our decision to go with the Yamaha 300 HPDIs. We never saw these types of performance numbers and noted such on our first letter to Contender dated July 20, 2007. Note here: This letter and timeline is available on timeline or court documents page . Also note that this letter is dated July 20, 2007 and here we are going public for the first time on Feb 2010.

We have tried to work with contender and have taken the boat to the dealer and the factory multiple times. Not once did we post anything public until now, after a court trial by jury and still no resolution. The issues with the motors was that we never saw anything close to the performance numbers that they claimed we would get. With fuel consumption critical to our long range trips, the combination of lower than advertised fuel burn and being shorted 30 gallons of fuel tank capacity, this was an issue. Oil burn was also much higher than advertised as we went through 55 gallons for every 100 hours of use combined with 30 hours max on a set of plugs. The boat would not go over 50 mph in 1-2 foot seas before the outside motors would begin to bark. Our core fishing style is tuna fishing 80+ miles out, that is a long trip and we never leave the dock unless we have a calm forecast. Going to the Bahamas and Back Tournament we had a rough crossing, the worst weather this vessel has ever experienced. The seas reached 4-6 foot with a few 7 footers while in the stream. During this crossing we where only able to reach 8 kt because the outside motors would cavitate on every wave at any speed higher than that, they still did it regularly just not every wave. This made for a really long crossing. Also we do not regularly tackle those kinds of seas. When we returned, we contacted our salesman and took him for a test ride. He agreed that the motors where not right and called the Contender factory. Contender approved the dealership to lower the engines 1 bolthole. This resulted in the vessel losing 7 mph and it wasnt performing much better. So we paid $1000.00 to raise the motors back up to the original hole location. The motors remained in this location until they rebuilt the transom. To rebuild the transom,(which they later deny doing) the motors had to be removed and when they where remounted they where mounted 3-4 inches wider. This gave a larger spread between the motors Since the motors where repositioned the boat RUNS GREAT. This leaves me to suspect that originally the motors where not mounted correctly. Thus we had issues with the motors, either way the motors where mounted and remounted by Contender and altered once by the dealer.

These are legitimate issues that we had to deal with. The vessel has spent lots of time in various shops to try to diagnose the sparkplug fouling problem, That equates to a lot of down time and out of pocket expenses to tow this vessel up and down I-95.During one of the repair trips to the factory I did ask Contender to upgrade the motors for us, so one part of boat wasnt a piece of crap and we would live with many of the stress cracks as long as he would keep fixing them past one year gelcoat warranty and the transom crack doesnt return. Contender said that they would try to do something for us that turned out to be another stall tactic just so they could have more time to repair boat. Weeks went by before they called and gave us a phone number for a place that bought used motors. The place said that they would give us 5-6K for ours and contender would sell us new ones at a good price and to their credit they said they install them for free. This transaction would have required us to still come up with roughly 24K out of pocket and with so few hours on the motors it made more sense to simply keep feeding them sparkplugs.

A management employee at Contenders approved dealership stole $56,000 from us.

This was a down payment on the 33 boat. After 4 months we discovered the thief had taken our money. It took 13 months to get him to repay us. We found this when we checked our balance due on the boat, the money wasnt there. For 2 months they told us it was lost in paperwork. This was BS because we wouldnt let the buyer of our old boat take possession of it until the check cleared at the bank. So how could it be lost in the paper work if they had it? When we agreed to let them pay us back over a 6 month period they pulled more BS by not returning phone calls or by sending checks to us unsigned and being in the Bahamas while we waited 2 weeks for them to return to sign the check. They continued stall tactics more than once. When we told them they would have to pay the interest they owed us they were pissed and instead of thanking us for not putting them in jail, plus giving them time repay us by the month, they still shorted us on the $400.00 in interest. He was wearing a grin on his face, instead of wearing a black and white striped jail uniform.

We purchased the Contender 33 in late 2006 and thought we had the best fishing vessel in the water. We were proud owners of the Contender 33. After the first time we put it in the water we found stress cracks and we arent talking little cracks. In over 30 places we found not only stress cracks , the transom was cracking.

We drove the boat to Contenders factory on our own time, 5 hours each way and two days wasted. They had it for 6 weeks and at 8 weeks we had our lawyer call them. By their own admission they finally put a rush job on it, we got the boat back after months of not being able to use it.

After this attempt to repair our first trip was the Canaveral Mack Attack 2007 tournament. The seas were flat as a lake and guess what-- ALL THE CRACKS CAME RIGHT BACK AGAIN, Including the transom cracks in the same spot. Because it was fishing season I was told by Contender to go ahead and fish the boat with cracks until they had time to repair it again.

After months it was returned to us with filthy bird crap, fiberglass dust & overspray everywhere. Everybody knows that outboards dont have air filters that,s alot of dust for the motors suck in! The throttle cables and shifting were reversed, the through hull fitting was broken and they hid the hose in a chase instead of reconnecting it.The trailer worked fine when they picked the boat up but was returned with the Trailer brakes locked and burnt up, & the bait well lid wasnt closed. This caused the cover to blow off on the way backthe delivery man handed the cover to me. This is just a few examples how it was returned to us repaired and ready. When the boat was returned to Contender Miami factory for the second time they promised a 2 week return and a CLEAN boat ready for the seas. Well 6 weeks later still no boat right in middle of the dolphin run. We called our lawyer again because they wouldnt finish and return our boat. After 8 plus weeks of their repairs, we experienced more of the same problems but worse. We put boat in water and smoke started billowing out of the bilge and hatches..

You guessed it. back again for 2 more weeks for repairs of things Contender didnt repair the last time and they caused some of these problems while working on it. By the way, Contender or the dealer never found where the smoke came from we did later in trial . After the boat was returned the second time from contender they assured us that the transom wouldnt crack again. We fished the boat and the first time out the cracks started coming back. By our 3rd trip the all cracks were back. The transom crack was back but it appeared on the other side at a different spot. Contender wanted to try to repair it again and this would be 3 tries for Contender plus 1 attempt to repair it at the dealership which would make the 4th try. We said no way, give us new boat, this one is defective. Contender said no way - We will see you in court! Well court it was.

Almost two years later and tens of thousands dollars and a 5 day jury trial started. As expected, we won the verdict if you could call it winning. Even with Mr. Joe Neber taking the stand and testifying If this boat ever comes out of water once it is abuse but they run ads like this. He also said that 20 over-revs in 460 hours of use is abuse That comes out to One over-rev every 23 hours or 1 over-rev per overnight tuna trip. Ask the guys who fish the SKA Kingfish, they know better, they have this many over revs. in one trip or one race at the Hogs Breath In Key West. Go to Kingfish Connection and read the posts. Mr. Neber says if a person uses a boat 300 hrs. in a year that is excessive He went on to say stress cracks shouldnt appear without uh, under normal use, they shouldnt appear. Under excessive use, they will appear. this is a quote from his deposition. Then the Dealer got on stand and he said boats come from the factory all the time with stress cracks just from bouncing on the trailer going down the road. So which is it? Is it normal or not? Then all the Contender witnesses testified under oath that the problem was not structuralIt was all cosmetic. Cosmetic problems do not keep reappearing if there is not an underling problem.When their excuses dont work they try to blame it on us using the boarding ladder while boat is not in the water. If that doesnt work they will say you dont know how to drive the boat. We have 40 years of Offshore fishing I think we know how to drive a boat. We have owned multiple offshore boats. Our team doesnt like to fish unless it is 3 feet seas or less. We have a 62 year old couple who regularly fish with us so we are not out jumping waves with 62 year olds aboard! It only took six 6 weeks after we ordered the 33 to have it delivered to us.

NOTE: It took 6 weeks to build the boat but it took 8 plus weeks each time it went back to the factory for repairs. Hows this for customer service?

If this is their policy for after the sale service, you may want to think twice before purchasing from a company with a wait them out attitude.

As we proceeded to a trial we found out all the work orders and pictures pertaining to the repair problems were mysteriously missing. The evidence was lost or not produced as evidence at the trial. We knew this because the Dealerships manager testified that there was a whole file of pictures and work orders. By the way, the man who did all the repair work had moved to Columbia?? The Contender warranty is worded vaguely and even tricky. It states you have to have privity with Contender.. Well you cant buy a boat directly from Contender so you cant have privity with them so what good is a warranty if you cant qualify for it? We spent appox half of the 5 day trial arguing over Privity! If you dont have a common sense Judge, you could get a case thrown out and have a mistrial. It appears Contender may appeal the jurys verdict. Instead of replacing an obviously defective boat and making the problem right they will use their corporate money to outspend us ! So we are fighting back. Watch for ContenderBoatsBreachWarranty.com- The website is coming soon. I will have all the court evidence, records and depositions plus pictures and videos showing their shoddy repairs and all our costs for you to see. You wont believe this: It takes $50,000 plus to take a case to trial. Before this trail I would have guessed it would cost around $10,000 or $15,000 with lawyer fees and documentation to have a case go to court. Wow, were we wrong - $23,000.00 and counting, and so far just for COSTS, this doesnt even include lawyer FEES! Contender used a very good high dollar attorneyno telling how much they have spent. We will bet it is way more than what it would have been to give us a new boat from the get go! The court case is over so we will be fishing this year. We couldnt use the boat because we had to mitigate damages keeping the boat in the same condition it was in at the time we started the lawsuit. We have almost 2 years of making payments and paying insurance costs plus having to maintain the boat without being able to use it. THAT REALLY SUCKS. PLEASE READ YOUR WARRANTY AND UNDERSTAND IT OR THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU! WE WOULDNT WISH THIS ON ANYONE ELSE. Ask Contender about privity before you sign any papers.

P.S. We bought the 33 Tournament to fish on the other side and tournaments. Contenders Website is full of promises that Contenders are perfect for these situations. They say one thing in court and another thing on the website. Talk about talking out of both sides of your mouth!!!