I took my boat into Dean" Marine June 8th 2017 for a estimate to replace an old 305 inboard motor
on my boat with an upgraded 350 motor. I had a horrible experience and thought it would be best to warn others in advance of the lack of customer service I encountered and huge labor cost that was billed to me.
The big problems I had were the following:
1- I received an estimate back from Dean at the end of May 2017. The labor was estimated for
$1940.00 to replace the old motor with a new one using existing parts from my boat. When I was presented with the final bill it was more that 2.5 times MORE than the $1940 quoted!
2- I checked in at Dean's shop on 3 different dates and he reassure me that the boat would be ready "for sure" by "this" certain date. These 3 dates came and passed with zero contact back and no finished boat. I finally received our boat back mid August as it took 9 weeks total. To be fair, the boat also needed to have some fiberglass cracks repaired in the motor mount which delayed the boats finishing time by approximately 2 weeks and added $3700 to the bill. I asked Dean again July 26th if the boat would be ready for the long weekend in August and he said 100% for sure,no problem. I emailed Dean the Tuesday before the August long weekend asking for an update on the boat as it was promised to me that it would be done. I received no reply back at all so I called that Thursday and was finally told it would not be finished until the next week by the secretary.
3- Our control module was broken by Dean when he removed it at his shop. Dean claims it was seized but before we took the boat to him but my son tested the throttle a week earlier and it worked just fine. Of course I was billed for a second hand one with the labor cost of course.
4- When we tested the new motor on the lake under load, the motor had a mis-fire and a hesitation. My son who has a lot of mechanical experience, went back to Dean and discussed this mis-fire/hesitation in the new motor with Dean and Terrance (Dean's marine mechanic). He also discussed that our new GPS that was on the boat (removed by Dean's Marine and stored for 9 weeks) was missing the side cover where the SD card goes. Dean look and listened to him then abruptly went back to work on the bench on a project ignoring him completely showing zero interest in these issues.
5- When we were breaking the motor, we noticed a shift cable hose was leaking water behind the motor filling the boat up with water. After some research we found that the end of the hose must be above the waterline and ours had been incorrectly installed below the waterline causing water to leak in. Boats have sunk because of this!
Overall the lack of communication, customer service and massive labor bill was horrible. I gave my business to this company as they were a local family company. NEVER AGAIN! as I wished I had read the prior 1 star reviews on Facebook before calling them. When you are going to "jack up " a bill on a customer from 12,700 to over 21 grand, you call them and ask if its ok to proceed with that extra work like a car mechanic does and you stick to your deadline dates. I realize that things break and take longer to do but be professional and give the customer the heads up! Maybe it might be a good idea to have a mattress in your reception area so when customers get their bill they have something to fall back on from the shock of the price!