1 hour ago, RyanB said:

If you go this far, it isn't much further to go electric.

Right, but if he’s got calipers seized, he still needs to replace those.  You can get a new master cylinder for under $100, you don’t have to buy a whole actuator assembly.  

Ryan, kudos to you for having done some homework on this.  As far as trusting a service advisor, I understand that but if he “believes” 220 is normal, I’d push to back up that data.  He (as well as his techs) have the “phone a friend” option by calling Ford.  You do too.  My comment on weight distribution was more along the lines of “be careful, if you are towing outside your vehicle limits, Ford and the dealer will quickly wash their hands of your situation”.  
If I’m correct, 2014 was the first year for the new 23’ hull, so my 08 is a different weight than yours, and I use an F150 so my experience is a little different than yours, but not too far off. 

15 hours ago, Mark5522 said:

Thank you everybody for your suggestions and advice.  

So we finally tried a few of the suggestions. Yes, I agree the VTX is skiable at 28mph 15’ off, skiing from the rear pylon, wedge in lift, with some ballast up front. But it handles horribly and handles even worse at 30 with that setup. But, at least the wake is skiable unlike simply skiing at 28 or 30mph from the mid skiing pylon with the wedge in stow which creates a wake with a sharp, nasty, unskiable lip.

In the optimal slalom skiing setup (that I mentioned above) the boat cannot be simply driven through a slalom course because it handles too poorly.

in other words, it is really not a serious skiing boat and it’s not a serious wake boat so it’s really just a boat that can’t do anything well. Just a bad boat  

My wife feels we were mislead by the Malibu dealer.  

We found a number of the same suggestions to be helpful in our 2011 VTX, but ultimately chose to buy a nice, though older Lxi, and then eventually upgraded our VTX to a 25lsv, which we needed as the kids hot bigger. 

I also completely understand that your wife feels misled. The dealer is a salesman, plain and simple. He's not a bad guy, I have known him for 20 years, but a salesman for sure. We initially wanted a VTX in the hope of only having 1 boat, that would do everything well enough. We outgrew it's abilities fairly quickly though, and are much more satisfied with a 2 boat set-up. Seems to me your wife is already past the point where a tru slalom boat is needed. I would start looking for a pure slalom tractor, then figure out what to do with the VTX.

30 minutes ago, Bradley Thornton said:

Well I'm building a Boathouse over the winter and trying to figure out the best way to do this. I'm thinking about buying a 40-60gal Transfer tank and mounting it on a Small Trailer. I know some will yell DOT or something. This setup will only go about 4 miles at no faster than 35mph and I will make 100% sure it says Gas all over it. I will have to extend the hose about 10ft to make it reach. Does anyone have any info on if the Diesel version will work or if it has to be the Gas version? 

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CRDFZSP7/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_6?smid=&psc=1

 

https://www.harborfreight.com/1090-lb-capacity-40-12-in-x-48-in-utility-trailer-62665.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=19166626963&campaignid=19166626963&utm_content=143651945425&adsetid=143651945425&product=62665&store=511&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwgdayBhBQEiwAXhMxtmQj7Ji-ef5Fz3rDs_4OwZGOTkvu06hmPIXrr0Bh0LjVqXwbnJvE3BoCuI0QAvD_BwE

 

Looks like the amazon one is unavailable now. This one is:

https://amzn.to/3V7JMGS

or

https://amzn.to/4aCpNph

On 5/21/2024 at 9:49 PM, Mark5522 said:

 

So what was the final recommendation from the owner of the multistate Malibu dealer? Weight is the enemy of the wake and that is the cause of our problems. So according to him to make a small wake:

1. We should not have any friends or spectators on the boat while we slalom to keep weight to a minimum. (No observer, only the driver??)

2. We should run the boat at a maximum of 15% fuel in the tank in order to minimize weight from the fuel.

 

With regards to this, when my crew is skiing the course behind the closed bow we don't ever put more than 5-10 gallons of fuel in at a time and we usually ski with just the driver and one observer. That's been pretty universal amongst several crews I've skied with at various ski clubs so the dealer's recommendations make sense to me.