Mean Bean, My 262 buying adventure

[samuri33]

I wanted to share my Cobalt 262 buying adventure to maybe help others and for us to be able to look back one day on all the changes we make to her. First, the name. It's "Mean Bean". The word Bean is a family nickname that we tag on the end of my wife and daughter's first name, you know, like Jillybean and CharleeBean. I surely don't call my wife "mean bean" at least not to her face, so now I can call the boat that! Before I tell you about the journey to the bought we bought, let me tell you a little about a few boats we didn't buy. The first was a 2001 262 with the VP 8.1GSi located near Stoneboro PA. She is a nice looking boat, but the owners gave me such a hard time to sea trial her. They didn't have her insured or registered and wanted me to pay to insure and register her just to take her for a ride. Obviously we had to pass on that boat. The second 262 we looked at was 2005 with the 8.1Mag HO. Below is the boat trader URL. This boat was nice. We drove 8 hours one way to see her and sea trial her on lake Cumberland. On the water, she accelerated and ran nice. She topped out at 4500 RPM and 55 mph. I was expecting another 500 RPM and maybe 3-5 MPH than she ran. When we got her back to the shop to investigate why she was running a little lower revs than expected, we found a plug wire off of one of the wires. The mechanic and salesman were too busy to take her back out to prove that was the issue, so we drove 8 hours home disappointed. The salesman called me a few days later and said they took her back out again and she ran 5000 RPM and 60 MPH. He asked if I was still interested in the boat and we said we have to decline. I never told him the reason we declined was because how the handled the situation when we found the plug wire off.

https://www.boattrader.com/listing/2005 ... e=standard listing

[samuri33]

Literally, the day after I got home from Kentucky looking at the 2005 262 I wrote about above, a 2004 262 was posted in Rogers Arkansas. I called immediately and put a deposit on the boat and made plans to fly down to Northwest Arkansas to see her. I flew down from PA to AR on 11/6 to check her out. I hired a certified boat survey and he drove down from Springfield Missouri to meet me on 11/7. I also hired the Mercrusier Certified tech from the Cobalt dealer who was brokering the sale to work with my surveyor to give the boat a really thorough evaluation. This boat has the 8.1 Mag HO, Bravo 3 1.82 drive. She has captains call, extended swim platform, SS ski tower, perfect pass cruise control, trim tabs, just about everything we wanted (except the transom filler cushions). Below is the Youtube link from the broker. The mechanic and surveyor went through the boat with a fine tooth comb. They found a few issues. A7 and BBP know the full story, but I don't want to make anyone look bad so I won't post the details in public. I will say I paid $900 for the mechanic and surveyor. Because of their inspection, I kept $10,000 in my pocket from the sale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tTarW7uXP8

[samuri33]

It took about a month of negotiating the sale for mean bean. As I said, the surveyor and mechanic found some "issues" and took the owner about a month to accept that he was going to be selling the boat for less than he thought. The deal was finally closed in early December and all that was left was for me to drive 1000 miles to pick her up! I'd be pulling her from Rogers Arkansas to Indianapolis Indiana to drop her off for the service that the mechanic and surveyor found. Big Block Power (BBP is awesome BTW) turned me on to a well known marine shop in Indy, Schumaker Performance. I'll tell you more about how awesome the Schu Crew is in Indy in my next post. So my dad and I jumped into our F150 4x4 5.4 triton to go get her. I was nervous that the F150 might not be rated to pull the boat and trailer safely. I knew the boat weighed roughly 6000 pounds, but had no idea how much the trailer weighed. I studied the specs for the truck, she is rated 15,500 gross truck and trailer, with 500 pound tongue weight, 1000 pounds with a load distributing hitch. We didn't have the load distributing hitch...Ok, to make a long story short the truck weighed 5800 without the trailer and boat 13,500 with the boat. So the boat and trailer weighs somewhere around 7700lbs. That puts the tongue weight around 770lbs, a little over the max tongue weight for our truck. We drove the 1000 in 16 hours all in one day. We picked the boat up all shrink wrapped on 12/27 and headed for Indy. Below is a picture of the truck and boat just before we left. We made it to Indy from Rogers in about 10 hours. The truck pulled the boat with ease. We had the cruise set at 65 MPH most of the way. The trailer and boat pulled very nice.

Oh, did I say how much BBP and A7 has helped me through this whole journey, shout out to BBP and A7!

[samuri33]

Ok, so I dropped the Bean of at Schumaker's just south of Indianapolis on 12/27. I had no experience with Schumaker's, just a recommendation from BBP. No one was there when we dropped her off on 12/27, because they were closed until 1/2 for the holidays. So we dropped her in the parking lot and drove the 6 hours to Erie PA. I figured I call Bill Schumaker on 1/3 to check in since they would be getting back from the holidays the day before. Bill called me at 8:30 AM the morning the got back to say they already had it in the shop to go over the work the mechanic and surveyor said she needed. I was so impressed they jumped right on it. That was just the beginning of the impressive work they've down so far. Bill called me back the same day around noon and said he went over the engine and drive very closely. He said the engine and drive is in tip top shape, just what he expected for a boat with 250 hours on it. My jaw hit the floor. Bill could've easily took my $8,000 and never fixed a thing! He didn't, the Schu Crew is the real deal, the way it's supposed to be. The changed the water pump impeller, fuel/water separator, and a few other minor items. Since they were so honest and upfront with the mechanical issues the broker mechanic and surveyor said needed done, I decided to have Schumaker do the gel coat work. The blue and yellow became very faded due to sitting on a boat lift unprotected. Hopefully you can see in the photos below, what a great job Shcumaker's guys did sanding, buffing, and polishing her. She looks great now.

[samuri33]

Here's a few more pictures after Schumaker's detailed "Mean Bean"

[samuri33]

A few more pics

[samuri33]

Now that the service and detail is all done, I'm going to store her in doors for the winter on Schumaker's show room. Bill Schumaker and I are now talking about mooring covers. I need a new one. I can buy the Shark Skin Plus Cobalt OEM cover from Westland Industries for about $950. The down side to the OEM cover is that is doesn't cover the extended swim platform. Schumaker has a guy who can make me a custom cover out of Shark Skin plus or Sumbrella that can cover the boat from bow, over the SS Ski Tower, all the way back to the extended swim platform. He estimated the larger custom cover will cost between $1,300 to $1,400. I'm looking for feedback or advise, go with the OEM or custom cover?

[ajcampen]

Great story, I had an over the tower cover made for winter storage and it is heavy to put on. Buy oem and a separate one for swim platform

[Ytmsn]

Sam this has been an awesome story to follow along with, thanks for sharing!

I had a custom cover made for my 262. The arch is exposed but it covers the extended swimdeck. Highly recommended

20180523_115922.jpg

[Big Block Power]

Go custom. Yt did the same thing on his and never looked back. Congrats on bringing her back to life. That's awesome. I'm glad they are taking great care of you and mean bean.

[cmattj]

Great read! And if the resources are there get the custom. Well worth the extra . I vote sunbrella fabric!

[samuri33]

Great story, I had an over the tower cover made for winter storage and it is heavy to put on. Buy oem and a separate one for swim platform

Thanks AJ for the advice, the over the tower cover looks great, especially for the winter!

[samuri33]

Sam this has been an awesome story to follow along with, thanks for sharing!

I had a custom cover made for my 262. The arch is exposed but it covers the extended swimdeck. Highly recommended
20180523_115922.jpg

YT, your cover looks sweet! What material is it made of?

[samuri33]

Go custom. Yt did the same thing on his and never looked back. Congrats on bringing her back to life. That's awesome. I'm glad they are taking great care of you and mean bean.

I'm leaning toward the custom, especially with the great feedback. Since I saved a "boat" load of money at Schumaker's, I may just be able to pull it off. If I ever need any work done to mean bean other than routine maintenance, Bill Schumaker is the only one that I'll use. I so happy I listened to you BBP!

[samuri33]

Great read! And if the resources are there get the custom. Well worth the extra . I vote sunbrella fabric!

Thanks for the advice cmattj! Sunbrella has twice the warranty over shark skin, my guy said the only downside of sunbrella is if I go with an over the tower cover, it'll be heavy!