After 3 + months of waiting for my new 198 it finally arrived and dealers rigging crew did an excellent job rigging trolling motor and electronics ...after getting it home is where the troubles began . When I was ordering the boat I asked if the out long decals down the side of the boat could be left off as they get scratched up with all the old standing timber here in Truman lake , was told NO boats came the way they came no special orders ! OK fine I remove them the same as did on my 188. First side came off with no trouble ( as did with my 188). Second side lifted the paint almost the whole length of the decal .
So as you may expect I went to dealer to see if I could get factory to fix paint only to get into an argument with service guy ( warranty guy ) Was basically told boats can't ba modified the way they came from the factory .
Second issue , I asked many time before boat arrived what Pros Choice prop policy was was far as exchanging props to get boat to run top proformance . Was told many times that trying different props would be NO Problem . So here we are after doing break in period and then WOT and getting 50 MPH at 6300 RPMS I get this same service guy telling me that 50 MPH is all I'm ever going to get and changing props won't make a difference ???? So when I press him on the issue he says Ok well what prop do you want to try ( have a 23 Tempest now ) said I wanted to try a 24 . So then I get well we don't stock 24s , no one ever uses that size and if they ordered one special that I would have to buy it .
Since I got this boat I've done nothing but go round and round with this guy who's official statement is basically " If it came from the factory that way it can't be changed "