My Cruise Control Surging is Fixed!!!

[water_junky]

Finally, after a year and a half of messing with my cruise control problem, it is fixed!! I have been having a problem with my cruise surging so bad that you could not ski behind the boat with cruise set on MPH. I was on my third or fourth paddle wheel, while the problem did get a little better it still wasn’t fixed. I saw a post on here earlier about GPS speedometers and I was curious if it would fix my problem. I checked out the Nautic Laugic’s website and was disappointed that they only had products for 2004 and older Malibus. I contacted them about my 2009 Malibu and they had just produced a product to replace the ST-300 paddle wheel and wanted to know if I would test it for them. I jumped on the chance and I am so happy that I did.

I am in no way associated with this company, I’m just a very satisfied customer that will probably be upgrading my 2000 Response with GPS as well.

I received my NL4 from Nautic Laugic in just a few days after ordering, it was packaged very well and included everything shown below.

The NL4 install is very simple. First, find your paddle wheel in the boat and trace the wiring to find your 4 pin plug. In older boats it tends to be located under the dash, in my 2009 it is in the bilge area right next to the starter (I looked under the dash for a while before I decided to trace the wires) as shown here.

Disconnect the 4 pin plug that plugs your paddle wheel into the boats harness, connect the mating plugs from the NL4 harness to the plugs that you just disconnected as shown here.

Find a dry protective area to mount the NL4, I chose to mount mine right above the paddle wheel as shown below. Be sure to provide strain relief for the Garmin GPS cable.

I ran my GPS cable up along the port side of the boat and mounted the Garmin puck right in front of the glove box.

I then used a hand held GPS unit to calibrate the speedometer in the boat with the new GPS unit and that is it! It is so simple and totally reversible. My cruise is now smooth as I expected in the first place from Malibu.

Terry

[thtrog]

Awesome!!! Do you have Maliview or does it matter?

[water_junky]

Awesome!!! Do you have Maliview or does it matter?

I do have Maliview and it doesn't matter. The only strange thing is watching the speedometer start going when my wife pulls me down to the boat ramp to put the boat in the water.

[TrickyNicky]

How much?

[cyoda44]

$325 on Ebay Link. $300 on their web site.Nautic Laugic

[snowrider]

Looks like a great product. Did you still use the plug from the paddle-wheel into the NL4 box for the temp sensor?

[water_junky]

Looks like a great product. Did you still use the plug from the paddle-wheel into the NL4 box for the temp sensor?

Yes, that is why the NL4 box has two plugs. I did verify last night though that my 2009 VLX looks like it is getting it's water temp from the depth finder transducer instead of the paddle wheel. I unplugged the plug from the NL4 and the water temp on the gauge didn't change, I unplugged the transducer and the water temp on the gauge dropped to 32 degrees.

Terry

[DCM554]

I ordered one today based on Terry's endorsement. Question, does it lose speed in a turn or does the GPS understand what is happening and keep the speed the same?

[water_junky]

I ordered one today based on Terry's endorsement. Question, does it lose speed in a turn or does the GPS understand what is happening and keep the speed the same?

It does not lose any speed in a turn, that is what would drive me crazy when having to run the cruise with rpm mode.

Terry

[DCM554]

Thanks Terry. I'll report back when I get it installed. I'm not fixing a problem, this just seems like a great upgrade from the paddle wheel. Chris

[Chia]

Thanks Terry. I'll report back when I get it installed. I'm not fixing a problem, this just seems like a great upgrade from the paddle wheel. Chris

looks like a cool project, i look forward to your review as well.

[crom]

I am interested in your reviews, maybe smell a group buy coming up

[water_junky]

Thanks Terry. I'll report back when I get it installed. I'm not fixing a problem, this just seems like a great upgrade from the paddle wheel. Chris

Hey Chris,

Let me know how your install goes!!

Terry

[thtrog]

Terry,

I ordered mine today and look forward to bypassing the paddle wheel for good. Any tips on feeding the receiver wire behind the dash? Thanks

[water_junky]

Terry,

I ordered mine today and look forward to bypassing the paddle wheel for good. Any tips on feeding the receiver wire behind the dash? Thanks

The hardest part was trying to figure out how to get the wire from inside the glove box to inside the storage compartment. If you are facing the glove box with it open, you will see a gasket along the upper ridge to seal the top of the glove box to the fiberglass deck. I ran the wire behind that gasket all the way to the left corner and drilled a hole right at the end of the gasket to drop the wire into the storage compartment. I then ran the wire along the existing boat harness to the back. If this doesn't make sense I can try to get a picture of where I went through.

Terry

[thtrog]

The hardest part was trying to figure out how to get the wire from inside the glove box to inside the storage compartment. If you are facing the glove box with it open, you will see a gasket along the upper ridge to seal the top of the glove box to the fiberglass deck. I ran the wire behind that gasket all the way to the left corner and drilled a hole right at the end of the gasket to drop the wire into the storage compartment. I then ran the wire along the existing boat harness to the back. If this doesn't make sense I can try to get a picture of where I went through.

Terry

Thanks...I'll take a look when I get the unit and hit you up if I have more questions.

[water_junky]

Thanks...I'll take a look when I get the unit and hit you up if I have more questions.

Here are a couple of pictures that might help, the red arrow is pointing where the cable goes through (the cable is behind the rubber gasket)

This is from the bottom:

Terry

[thtrog]

Thanks for the pictures...I need to take a look at my boat to get better idea where you routed the cable. Is there enough room to feed the plug between the dash and the windshield? I'm looking at the last picture in your first post showing the finished install.

[water_junky]

Thanks for the pictures...I need to take a look at my boat to get better idea where you routed the cable. Is there enough room to feed the plug between the dash and the windshield? I'm looking at the last picture in your first post showing the finished install.

Inside the glovebox on the back wall is a bracket that holds the top of the glovebox down, if you loosen this bracket then you can lift up the top of the glovebox and there is plenty of room to get the plug through.

[sleddog]

Hi

Looks like a good product. Does anyone know if the ST300 paddle wheel is still fitted to the 2010 models? Are there any issues with the power wedge as I know that the paddle wheel has to be turning for the wedge to go up.

[water_junky]

Hi

Looks like a good product. Does anyone know if the ST300 paddle wheel is still fitted to the 2010 models? Are there any issues with the power wedge as I know that the paddle wheel has to be turning for the wedge to go up.

Don't know about the 2010's but I can tell you that the power wedge works just fine with this system.

Terry

[FlatH20]

FWIW- this is a very informative thread- I don't have any issues with my speed control but switching to the GPS seems like a sensible upgrade and it seems pretty affordable for the DIY version - ditto on that wedge question though.

[old skool malibu]

If you need to do any work on the wedge it is always nice to be able to pull up the paddlewheel and spin it to mmimic the boat moving. Whith the gps this would not be possible...however it looks like it is a simple plug and play so I would think you can keep the paddle wheel in your glove box and plug it in when doing wedge work out of the water..

[water_junky]

If you need to do any work on the wedge it is always nice to be able to pull up the paddlewheel and spin it to mmimic the boat moving. Whith the gps this would not be possible...however it looks like it is a simple plug and play so I would think you can keep the paddle wheel in your glove box and plug it in when doing wedge work out of the water..

The paddle wheel stays in place in the boat and yes it is plug and play so it would take two seconds to hook the paddle wheel back up.

Terry

[crom]

I have a 2004 LSV, and have Perfect Pass installed, anyone know if this product is compatable with PP? Sounds like a way cheaper alternative to upgrading to a Stargazer PP.