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Malibu in Search of New Customer Service/Warranty Director


Malibudude

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You couldn't pay me enough to be the head warranty person at Malibu. That without a doubt, has to be one of the most thankless jobs in America. Some of the boats should be shipped on a giant Lazy Susan, that way they could just rotate right back to the factory...

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From what I have heard from dealers, the PROCESS is the issue, not the person running it. Maybe the new person will help with the process so that dealers are given more leverage to service the customers properly and get compensated for it.

Edited by bamabonners
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IS that a typo?? It should come from the factory like that??? OR should not come from the factory like that??

Cause I am thinking it should NOt come from the factory like that without the hole drilled in the ski locker and a brass plug installed. and the same for the other problems/ Malibu runs each boat...so all of these problems should have been caught and fixed before leaving the plant!!

I misunderstood your post, sounded like they didn't put the T-handle in the thru-hull (yes can come like that), thought you meant they had the plug in place of the depth finder vs the transducer screwed in (yes they can come like that)... You got the shaft buddy, sorry.

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well any change is better service then I am getting now. i have several warranty items that e-mail to CS and the Dealer ( stateamind ) of St.Louise and have not heard from either one for month. one item is

going on 4 month. i will give them a last call before I have to take a differant direction. you can build the best boat in the world but its after taste that keeps going back and right now i have sour taste.

hope malibu make the right change

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The only way I would be interested in that job would be if the Quality dept was under my control as well. With that interaction, you might be able to correlate the data to show where the improvements need to be. I'm not sure those two departments even have each other's phone #'s now. I spent many years in the assembly plants at GM. I've seen the way to improve quality on the production floor. As long as you have humans building a product with many optional choices on the assembly line and no checks for every correct part and option, you're going to have quality issues. It is costly to implement but the results pay back many times over in the long run. Product quality, warranty costs and customer satisfaction are the results. It doesn't take long to recoup the quality implication costs spent on the factory floor.

Yep, If both CS abd QC are under production....there are always problems, as production always looks at the two as hinderances. Have dealt with that scenario before, and it is always a struggle...and production never sees it as their fault.

Hope Malibu gets it fixed!!

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IMO, that wouldn't be much of a hill to climb. The factory floor can have their eyes opened easily with the Warranty and CS data. You can't deny it if it's hitting you from the dealers and customers everyday.

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OUr boat came without the plug in the ski locker, with out the transducer for the depth finder, the cold and hot water hoses were not connected up to the manifold located in the locker so when the engine was running water was being pumped all over the place, and instead of a tachometer they installed a speedo (the other side/opening had zero off) ...so i'd say the quality control needs some work too. There were other issues, but those were the bigger things that were missed.

Happy, are you jkendallmsce incarnate?

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The reality is that these instances are a very small percentage of happy and thankful malibu owners who have received a trouble free boat. Further, we oftend don't hear from the many many other owners who experienced some issue and had it addressed expeditiously by a competent dealer.

Good post as usual Chatt. I especially agree with this part. If Malibu were really deficient in quality and customer service compared to the other manufacturers they would not continue to be the industry leader year after year. People would just move to other brands.

In the time I've owned my boat I had one warranty item that needed immediate attention. It was a broken engine water pump. My dealer had it diagnosed and repaired in a couple days. Indmar said they had only seen that happen 2-3 times in 20 years. Turned out it was a material defect from the OEM of the water pump and mine was one of the first bad ones. They then issued a recall on that batch of pumps. Door to door from when I dropped my boat off to when I was back on the water was 1 week in the middle of the season. Couldn't have been handled any better.

Other than that one occurrence with the water pump my boat has been problem free. No Malivue or MTC problems, no loose screws, etc, it just works. Fill it with gas, change the oil, and enjoy. Any time I have had a question or concern (like when I knicked a log with the prop and thought I had a prop shaft vibration) my dealer has gone above and beyond to completely take care of it. I would imagine a majority of Malibu owners have experiences similar to mine, otherwise they wouldn't keep buying Malibu.

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Good post as usual Chatt. I especially agree with this part. If Malibu were really deficient in quality and customer service compared to the other manufacturers they would not continue to be the industry leader year after year. People would just move to other brands.

In the time I've owned my boat I had one warranty item that needed immediate attention. It was a broken engine water pump. My dealer had it diagnosed and repaired in a couple days. Indmar said they had only seen that happen 2-3 times in 20 years. Turned out it was a material defect from the OEM of the water pump and mine was one of the first bad ones. They then issued a recall on that batch of pumps. Door to door from when I dropped my boat off to when I was back on the water was 1 week in the middle of the season. Couldn't have been handled any better.

Other than that one occurrence with the water pump my boat has been problem free. No Malivue or MTC problems, no loose screws, etc, it just works. Fill it with gas, change the oil, and enjoy. Any time I have had a question or concern (like when I knicked a log with the prop and thought I had a prop shaft vibration) my dealer has gone above and beyond to completely take care of it. I would imagine a majority of Malibu owners have experiences similar to mine, otherwise they wouldn't keep buying Malibu.

I completely agree. I've had 4 Malibus over the last 18 years and have only had two minor issues combined that were both fixed under warranty with no questions asked. Go over to Mastercraft Team Talk and you can read about just as many "issues" with their boats as well.

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I completely agree. I've had 4 Malibus over the last 18 years and have only had two minor issues combined that were both fixed under warranty with no questions asked. Go over to Mastercraft Team Talk and you can read about just as many "issues" with their boats as well.

And there you're only allowed to post about a legitimate issue and only due so without hurting the name of mastercraft or it's dealers.

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If you mention cash rewards on TMC isn't it an automatic lifetime ban?

You mean TT and yes I think it is, granted I'm not sure how you'd enforece a lifetime band? Even IP addresses change.

The funny thing is that most mastercraft (and TT readers) don't even realize this.

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You mean TT and yes I think it is, granted I'm not sure how you'd enforece a lifetime band? Even IP addresses change.

The funny thing is that most mastercraft (and TT readers) don't even realize this.

Our mods have figured it out.

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You know, it's a catch 22 to be in that position. My company does the same crap. I could make a call to complain on the behalf of a customer and they will basically have me tell them too bad. But one phone call from the customer themselves and it is a different story. Kind of like the issue with wakedaddy's tower, the dealer told him I contact Malibu directly as they knew Malibu would give pushback. It's all about the bottom line, in any business. But with that said, for you Chatt, to come on here and say your getting tired of hearing people complain about warranty service and quality is a little off beat. You have a better relationship with your dealers than most, and your new boat every year shows that. To the average customer who spends 80-100k, damn right they're going to be pissed if they have as many issues with a new boat as some have described. Especially when they get hassled about warranty work. Granted, there is some user error that people don't want to admit to and feel warranty should cover it, but there are many legitimate issues that should not happen. Yes there are going to be issues that fall through the cracks, and all manufactures have their share of issues, but you should not be turned away because the boat was not purchased from a particular dealer, or hearing a dealer say they factor in warranty costs into the price of a new boat. Or the famous, "we just produce the boats and sell them to the dealers, we have no real pull on the dealers". Who ever said that should be gone. Even if it was true, you don't tell a customer that spent that Kind of money something like that.

Yes, every brand has its share of issues, but you would eliminate many of them if it was not such an ordeal to get warranty work done. I'll bet with your relationships and contacts you were never once denied service. You are not the average customer. Malibu could fix the issue very quickly by saying any dealer refusing to perform warranty work will no longer be a Malibu dealer.

It will be a tough gig for whoever takes over. Trying to please the customer with Malibu telling them to save money. Then having to work with dealerships refusing to do work. Would sound like a great job if you could actually perform the job without handcuffs

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Happy, are you jkendallmsce incarnate?

New to site as of a month ago. Just moved to CA from south east coast, retired and enjoying the weather. Although the Yosemite fire is making it a tad tough to be outside.

Edited by happypappy
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Lot of armchair quarterbacking going on in here.

I don't know all of the in's and out's of how BU runs its operation. I don't profess to. How some of you guys can hop on here and start slinging out personal attacks against particular individuals is disgusting. I have a friend who is a rep, and it's my understanding that, believe it or not, BU has improved its quality control substantially (per number of corrections that are made per boat off the line) over the last 4 years. The way people talk on here makes it appear that BU produces a product that is more prone to have issues or defects than some other manufacturers. This is simply not the case. At least in my experience it isn't. I've owned a bunch of different boats from a bunch of different manufacturers, and the malibus and axis's I've owned have had less issues and given me less problems than both the mastercrafts and nautiques I owned. With my nautique 230s, I had gel cracking, seats tearing, towers splitting, throttle control sensors going out, constant issues with zero off holding speed, etc. My mastercraft required a new transmission, a new perfect pass, an entire new interior (all under warranty). With my Axis and Malibus, I've required one new speaker (07 vlx) and a few minor gel blemishes repaired ('11 Axis). I lost much much less time on the water with my Axis/BUs than with my other boats.

I also have numerous friends who own malibus, as well as mastercrafts, nautiques, supras, moombas, etc. In my observation, to suggest that the quality control at BU is somehow less than that at its competitors, or that it is going downhill, is baseless and incorrect.

It seems like every time somebody has an issue where a dealer is not getting a warranty repair done in lightning speed, someone jumps on here and starts complaining. Next thing you know, ten people are piling on yammering about how BU's QT has gone down and how they supposedly got jobbed on a warranty issue themselves. The reality is that these instances are a very small percentage of happy and thankful malibu owners who have received a trouble free boat. Further, we oftend don't hear from the many many other owners who experienced some issue and had it addressed expeditiously by a competent dealer.

I'm sorry to go on a rant here, but I'm just getting a little aggravated with the tone of a lot of the content that has been posted on this site lately. I'm currently trying to sell my essentially brand new LSV. If a prospective buyer jumps on here after googling "malibu forum" and reads half the stuff that's being posted, that guy very well may not buy my boat, because, some members on here have been jumping all over BU lately and making it seem like it produces a product that is somehow doesn't measure up. The reality is, and I think most of us know, that Malibu produces, dollar for dollar, feature by feature, the best lineup of wakeboats and ski boats in the industry. I think most of us understand that all manufacturers are going to have a boat slip through from time to time with an issue that will need to be addressed by warranty. I think most of us have had good experiences with our minor warranty issues. Unforunately, it seems like the minority of people who either have had the misfortune of engaging a bad dealer, have unreasonable expectations, or who just are looking for an excuse to complain, are speaking up more than all of the other happy customers who are spending their time enjoying their awesome boats instead of playing keyboard cowboy and firing shots at the brand most of us love.

Maybe this is just a call to arms for those of us who love our boats to take the time to post up our stories of trouble free boating, awesome dealer service, effective and expeditious warranty repairs and overall happiness with the brand. I certainly don't want my boat's image and desirability impacted by the vast minority of disgruntled owners.

Lastly, you guys do realize that it's not just us who read these posts? The people who work at BU have families, children, friends, etc. You guys calling for heads and demanding changes need to think about how they would feel if a handful of people got on a public forum and started bashing what you do and your job performance despite being ignorant of the actual in's and out's of your daily grind. So BU is looking for a new body in customer service. Great. Let's not go crazy attacking other departments and other individuals.

/Rant over.

A vast minority of disgruntled owners. Is that like the vast right wing conspiracy? ha ha

From what I read in your post, you have been very fortunate...from what I have read in other posts, some have not been as fortunate. ANd if I was a prospective boat owner considering Malibu, I would be even more skeptical if all I read was that Malibu was the greatest thing since sliced bread...and would not be an accurate description.

The fact is that ANY production item, Malibu in this example, tries to achieve 0% production problems/defects/etc. But as with ALL production processes, 100% is nearly impossible to achieve. Specially when dealing with components as Malibu does, that they have no control of their QC.

What is more important is how that defect(s) is addressed and resolved. Particularly when dealing with a recreational product such as a boat. Folks are more prone to switch manufacturers when dealing with their disposable income, than with say cars or other commodities that are essentials to day to day experiences. That being said, their reputation is paramount in the recreational arena. If the new owner with a warranty issue is treated promptly, and fairly, then Malibu has done their job. But on the other hand, if the owner is turned away, is ignored, etc. then there is an issue, and customer service is NOT doing their job. There have been tooo many posts to ignore that there is a problem with both CS and QC. ANd whether it be fair or not, the fish rots from the head down. And I know first had that items that should have been installed were clearly missed, which then sucks QC into the equation.

Just look at Tige and how Charlie started that company...Made side by side at Centurion, but Tige's customer service was waay better than Centurions! At least for the first few years as I have not followed Tige since they relocated to TX! Charlie had a great business play, and consequently was very succesfull!!! Tige grew from an idea to a major player in the boating industry in 10 years?? And subsequently probably sell many more boats than Centurion ever will in a year.

SO you have a numerous posts expressing Malibu's failure the resolve warranty items. And several posts regarding the failure of the(ex) head of CS to resolve said warranty issues. Is that a death knell for the company, NO! But it is an area that Malibu clearly needs to improve. Having been a Malibu owner for 20+ years, I am certain that any unbiased opinion(s) would say that customer service has declined from the days of Bob Alkema and the other original owners. It may be getting better, and if that is the case, then Malibu has even further to go to get to get the train back on the tracks.

Lets hope Malibu looks at resolving their production issues and hires someone who does a much better job of managing the CS department and that new hire will have the support of management to improve CS. Otherwise, Malibu will be hiring a successor to the 2 previous CS directors who were "let go" and will ultimately follow in their footsteps.

Edited by happypappy
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I think wakebrdr94 is right on on his comments.and it seems chattwake's comments are self serving that we should all shut up about quality issues on a 100K boat just so he can sell his boat.

I wonder what ever vehicle he bought new and had problems and went to a dealer and was told that dealer just sells cars but do not make them so shut up about any issues.

if malibu is worried about the quality perception issue, who better to listen then the endusers in an open forum like these. look at the cadillac forum site, they have customer service agent that

monitors that site and respond directly with any problems or issues right on the site.they even give contact info on site, I know for I am on their ATS site.

evey product or mechanical items no matter what brand is going to have an issue, it is how it is remedied that can change the perception, does everyone think Mercedes or Porsche do not have problems.then why do they have garages in their dealerships,but they are percieved as a quality product.

I bought my 2000 LXI new, had minor issues but were taken care of with no hassle, my perception of quality did not change, but new one has several issues and still not resolved.

this forum should post more of these issues so it can be heard .

In my case I welcome the change for I did get a call from Malibu technical department and they are working on the issues. they communicated with in next day ,just a communication goes long way.

if there is issue between dealers and Malibu, that should be work out between them rather then customer suffering and paying for that.

if nobody raises an issue then Malibu or any manufacturers does not percieve to be and continue with same process for change is costly.

and just like the old saying that everyone has opinion like everyone has -------. there will be some frevilous and legimate issues but they are big boys and they can sort those out.

do not get me wrong, I still love my boat but am not putting up with poor quality.

Keep the forum as what it was suppose to be, a place for opinions and open discussions ( with civility ) not a constrainded voicing page.

my 2 cents

  • Like 3
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  • 3 weeks later...

Nice self serving commentary nutoz... I guess someone who owns a 14 year old boat could care less about how those of us with newer rigs may suffer from some of the hate that gets spewed. I don't think wanting to keep the value of a newer boat high is "frevilous".

  • Like 2
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I was told this weekend that the position has been filled....by a former MC guy.....

Would love to know his name. I have a lakehouse neighbor who recently left MC and I wonder if it could be him. If so, that'll sure shake up our mostly MC cove!

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