Bu's New Clothes

[Beau]

Putting the boat to bed last fall we noticed how ratty the skins were looking in our 2000 Bu. Put some $$ in the budget to take care of that sometime during the winter. I checked around some and even talked with Chee about it. We live about an hour or so from the Tennessee Malibu plant so I checked with them too. Went down to Atlanta Inboard and they said no can do....skins not available for a boat as old as mine and the two seat bottoms I needed replaced could not be had.

So I was a little discouraged. Checked with Joyce at Marine Outfitters in Charleston, Tennessee (a Bu dealer). She went to work for me and got prices from the factory just for the skins and seat bottoms also got a price from the factory for having them do all the work since I was so close to them. WOW...from the factory pricing it was obvious they did not want to do the job and Joyce agreed it was an absolutely outrageous amount. She told me to sit tight and she would check around and see what she could do. A few weeks later she calls and has me a great price for all new skins, the seat bottoms I needed and all of it installed. She found a guy that apparently does upholstery at the factory whose hours had been cut way back, he had access to materials and was willling to do my job for considerably less than the factory quoted. Now of course all of this happened in the off-season. I imagine things are alot busier in the summer.

I took the boat up there to Marine Outfitters, about sixty miles, and left the boat with them. "Six weeks" she says. I call back on the 6th week and find that the boat will be ready the next weekend! So the next Saturday I go get "RHOBEAUT" from Marine Outfitters. Everything is WONDERFUL. They (He) really did a great job at a very reasonable price.

SO KUDOS TO MARINE OUTFITTERS IN MARYVILLE, TENNESSEE, JOYCE AND SOME GUY NAMED TRAVIS!!

I have boats, motorcycles, short trucks and tractor trailers......very rarely do I find service and committment like that. Jobs completed to my satisfaction on the first try. If I had to find anything wrong with the job it would be that apparently the boat wasn't covered at some point and a bunch of bugs, birds or a critter got in there and left a mess that wasn't completely cleaned up...but hey...that's what I've got this shop vac for....

All this being said....If you need upholstery work I can recommed Marine Outfitters in Charleston, Tennessee. Give Joyce a call.

[jmadden]

It's good to see a "service well done thread" occasionally to counteract all the negative threads out there. Enjoy!

[vlxjeff]

What did Chee say? My understanding is he could fix up the older boats.

I'm asking because I may be going through the same thing during the next off season.

[water_junky]

What did Chee say? My understanding is he could fix up the older boats.

I'm asking because I may be going through the same thing during the next off season.

Chee made new skins for a couple of cushions in my 2000.

[petemac]

FYI Chee is a great guy, we had "a failure to communicate" on size and what we needed to replace. He took care of us on a new Bu' drivers seat. We did the rest of the work with an automotive interior guy who matched our colors and did the spotters seat, back bench for about $400 bucks. bow vinyls still in good shape.

[Beau]

I had no problem witrh Chee. Just seemed to be a long way from home. And when I wanted to send him pics and information via e-mail he said he didn't have e-mail. That wasn't a deal killer but it did make me wonder. But still, had I used Chee I would have had to find the right person to put everything together. Having the whole package done by one person was alot easier on ol' Beau.