Unwrapped her today!

[IXFE]

You guys are way too easy on Malibu on this. If you had bought a new 85k Porsche and the hand stitched dash looked like that, you would standing on the dealer's desk demanding it be fixed.

This is crap. Those seams didn't do that in transit and sitting in the sun will probably make it worse as the glue gets hot. The sun trick does work with discolored vinyl.

Porsche's don't cost $85k anymore (at least not the good ones) and neither do 2014 LSV's. LOL!

But your point is valid, especially if you are comparing to cars. I used to draw the car analogy a lot but a few years ago I stopped because I think it's a bad comparison. The car building process is both high volume and highly automated. If you go back to the pre-automation days of car manufacturing, factory defects were much more common.

Setting cars aside, I think high-end custom homes are a better analogy to wake boats as they are both low volume, custom, and hand built. If you moved into a new $1m home, I think it's common to have a "punch list" of things that didn't turn out quite right, and you'd have a parade of sub-contractors through the home for the first few weeks/months tying up all the loose ends.

My dash looks sub-par as well. Why am I going to get all fired up about it? What's that going to do? It's not like this is my daily driver. It's not like the dash is going to affect my surf wave. I know that when I go in for my first oil change the new dash pod will be there waiting for me. Yawn... these are not problems worth a second though, much less the righteous indignation you continue to stir up.

One last comment. My dad just bought a new 2014 BMW X5 M Sport V8 with all the trimmings. It's black and gorgeous. He's had it for all of two months, and the car went haywire on him driving home from Phoenix last weekend (he lives in socal). It literally would not start due to some software glitch and stranded him in the middle of the desert. So yeah, it happens even with high end, mass produced cars.

[Fman]

I agree Dave, but it seems to be getting worse from Malibu than better. I had many items on my boat that I attribute to people not taking pride in there work and being sloppy. I will just leave it at that and not go into detail, at the end of the day it was all repaired. As you said, it's not worth getting upset about, but it's something Malibu should try and address and improve on. I thought my situation was a rare one, but seeing all these issues pop up is making me believe this is becoming the norm.

[IXFE]

I agree Dave, but it seems to be getting worse from Malibu than better. I had many items on my boat that I attribute to people not taking pride in there work and being sloppy. I will just leave it at that and not go into detail, at the end of the day it was all repaired. As you said, it's not worth getting upset about, but it's something Malibu should try and address and improve on. I thought my situation was a rare one, but seeing all these issues pop up is making me believe this is becoming the norm.

I hear ya... and I don't disagree. It's a shame really. There seem to be a handful of nagging issues or design flaws that everybody wants to see changed. I really feel like if they were addressed these boats would be darn near perfect. I'd put software interface as item #1 on that list. Vinyl wrapped dashes has been an issue for some time (hit or miss, but seems worse this year on the new LSV in particular). I might add a different tower locking mechanism to the list.

IDK... maybe all these boats I've owned have made me soft on expectations. Each one has had minor things to address, but overall they've all been fantastic. Not one major issue to report, knock on fiberglass

This new boat is too soon to tell. Perhaps my tune will change after I have a few hours on her.

[Tims]

^^^^^^^Agree that these boats are going to have issues with the current process that the manufactures use for quality control and design. The real problem surfaces if you don't have a competent dealer to perform the repairs. Sounds like IXFE has a great one that comes to his home to drop off props and strives to make it right.

What do you do if your dealer cannot even replace a sticker correctly? Sounds like a joke, but they are out there!! All I can say is shop your dealer just as hard as the brand.

To the OP. Great looking boat!!!

[bamabonners]

Back to the op.... Great looking boat. Love the simple color scheme and the trailer makes it pop.

Malibu really nailed the looks on the new lsv.

Sent from my HTC One mini using Tapatalk

[MEYJR]

I wasn't bent out of shape over the dash since I knew it was a common issue. i just sent the pic to my dealer to let him know eventually it would need to be fixed and they on their own sent in a request for a new one. Said it will take a couple weeks to get so I will just have it replaced when I take it in for the first maintenance in a few weeks. By then I am sure I will have more for them to take care of. Like the bubble in the swim platform.