2007 Challenger 230

[tbend]

Has anyone heard of the ceramic washer failures on the 2007 Challenger 230 and if so, after how long of use?

[RiverRacerX]

I am looking at getting one of these as well. My dealer said unless your boat comes out of the water and unloads and loads the pumps it should not have a washer failure?

Is this correct?

They have also installed pressure pop off valves on all of their SC motors and never had a washer failure?

[VX1]

Yes, and my dealer said the SC washers are made out of titanium, and the boat will easily do 65mph.

The theory USED to be that unloading the pump was the reason for premature washer failure, until many 2007 skis, and even boats, started failing with thier first few hours of break-in.

Probably not very many 2007 Challenger 230s sold yet to get a good consensus here, but it uses the exact same engines as the other boats, the exact same engines as the skis.

They have also installed pressure pop off valves on all of their SC motors and never had a washer failure?

That dealer truly deserves a good kick in the balls for that one.


Unfortunately at the present time, it would be a dangerous game to leave the ceramic washers in.

[cyoungesq]

Same engines, same washers, same problem . . . whether or not the boat comes "unhooked," there are plenty of sad stories out there of washers going within the first few hours. Your dealer is doing a great job of avoiding an established issue with the engines. Take your chances, but you can't say you didn't know and weren't warned as you "sit out" the rest of the season.

[TM1]

The cost of the insurance (steel washers) is minimal when compared to the headache caused if they do fail. Especially since BRP appears to only replace the washers in many cases, which means they are betting that the engine will fail due to ceramic particle contamination after it's out of warranty, imo.

Normally I would look skeptically at information born on the internet such as this, but it's been so well documented on this forum, it's hard to ignore.

Fwiw, when I bought my n/a doo in 7/05 I asked about supercharger problems and the service guy told me that they had a few failures on the pwc's due to wot wave jumping, but hadn't had any failures on the boats. That was enough info for me to stay away from the s/c model after just having had a nightmare experience with my previous 951 2 stroke doo. Now that people discovering this forum are lucky enough to have all of this information and a relatively cheap fix, it's much easier to decide on a s/c model, imo.

[Jeepster]

Don't rely on ANY dealers to tell you the problem is now OK....yesterday i went to dealer for a new wear ring...guess what he tried to convince me with....metal washer ain't good...BLA BLA BLA....ceramic is better, when they break they desintegrate in powder...BLA BLA BLA metal when it break saty in big pieces, not good at all....ceramic won't hurt at all the motor .....that's why when we found some blown ceramic washer in customers ride we ONLY....change the washers AND DO NOT CARE about getting the pieces out...they will flow out on the next oil change...BLA BLA BLA...!!!

Now....do you really want to put confidence on that statement....that's the exact same guy that few minutes before told me he was hardly ever changing the ceramic washers....10 minutes later he tells me he did many that way.....B**lshit...!

Open that....throw these away...this is the only insurance you'll get that they won't break...

[Jeepster]

Ceramics can blow in any conditions...metal need serious and repetitive abuse to blow.