Let's start with the dock lights put on my boat,When I ordered my boat at the dealer I had discussed dock lights and was shown two boats on the lot with billet aluminum or stainless with a inset lamp. then at the factory where these incredibly cheap looking tinplated stick on huge fish eye shaped led lights . When I returned home to my dealer and pointed out that both the brochure and the web site still showed the old ones at his expense had swapped them out. The online brochure was recently updated and the site as well but the lights I wanted are sill on page 40 see pic of current web brochure. (oppps) Malibu boats online brochure
Now on to the next one the JBL BB3(Black Box 3 Radio unit) Shown on page 6 and in the back under options connected to a Apple Ipod nano one generations back from current. Listed as a IPOD CONTROLLER none of the ones at my disposal or the dealers nor any one on the malibu forums and other sites discuss this fraud it may work with one Ipod made back 7 years ago that no one has access to but it didn't work with the one pictured in their literature ( see online brochure listed above or pic)which is the one I have. After making calls to the manufacture and customer service and my dealer who was completely unaware of and had no ideal how it was suppose work after a month of my time and effort gave me a refund and left me to figure out where to put a radio and a controller. Which will leave you with a very cool controller on the right side of the steering wheel that runs only the wedge and leaves you looking thru two screens of radio controls that do nothing. (this feature was so bad my dealer has decided to not offer the factory JBL units at all) If you call any of the dealers they will break down and eventually inform you of this major defect. Which lead to the next Item mentioned in their January blog (has been removed because of me )where the integration of the JBL BB3 would allow you to select a playlist to play under rider profile. Once again a huge feature I was looking forward to was the user profiles well guess what the Wedge is not controlled under the user profiles as described you have to manually put it up and down and the controls are very sketchy as to get it exactly where you want it twice. The power wedge was a very expensive option and I thought would be great the dealer once agin has no way of fixing the switch and Malibu didn't think to have the wedge controller drop it at increments that a single button control could act on or their integrated Medallion controller could be set with like the balast tanks that fill in increments.
Now on to the tower where I was told putting it up and down would be a breeze since the guy who built my boat house built it low since he had no tower when it was constructed. So once again the dealer shows me the tower tells me it is a easy lift and lower and it is counter sprung for this purpose. Ok so I go to lower mine for the first time and the thing lies on my very cool stitched Marine vinyl covered dash had the tower been mounted inches forward or back it would have been clear of the dash. Now I was told by my dealer and his salespeople and found and article that the tower could be adjusted so it would stop short of the the dash. now I'm told that can't happen by my dealer and Malibu's own Stephanie J in customer service says their is an optional spring kit which is not on their site and I guess at birth I was suppose to know this. (Ok it took me two years of shopping to buy this boat and the dealer knew it had to be lowered to get in and out of my boat house why was this option never brought up and now they want to sell it to me) So the dealer is oblivious to this and gives me a support pole (made by the manufacture of the tower (cost 75.00 he gave it to me to try yo solve the problem)that is going to make this all better. Not...
Now putting this tower up "wow" If I was only 3 inches taller since at 5'5 I can't get the tower up and that wonderful spring mechanism won't keep the tower up enough to allow me to put the pins in and I certainly can't reach the pin insert locations and hold the tower up. Now that super fix all pole is about 2 inches short of holding the tower up so to finish putting it up I get to use my best quarterback moves and shoulder it up enough to put the pins in . Please go to the following link and read his review and ask yourself why are the two so far apart apparently his dealer knew about the secret spring and knew how to adjust it. WakeWorld Malibu Illusion X Tower review
All of this and their are other items I feel are inaccurately represented. Some of the features may work but, no solid instruction from the dealer or manufacture exists. Like their unified user profile presets very cryptic instructions and even funnier than that is that the dash lights up but the buttons that control the ballasit and unified controls in the center of the dash are not. You might think this is the first year they built this boat with that center dash control module NOT and ask yourself why no instructional videos showing theses great features and their operation. Their are some very sophisticated controls here buried deep in menus and not as clearly marked as they need to be. As an example the cruise control,well I've been driving ski boats for years and I take a gradual pull approach and over throttle by maybe 10-15%. So I never had a problem with this but when my room mate and my best friend tried to pull me they over throttled past the cruise control and until it was mentioned on a service ticket where I was informed about the fact even with it set you should try yo only throttle to the speed you want to go with in 10% a training video would have been a help their. While I understand using pro riders to market the boats why not have them show how to use the boats.
Now on to the JBL, just try to find that list of approved Ipods on their site or more detailed information on their $1,200.00 JBL radio that sells for $325.00 minus speakers on ebay. Not even the manufacture of the JBL BB3 Prospec Click on link to see manufactures site offer a list and once you get the boat denial time starts. Even talking with Sephanie J her aproach with me was that these units worked on sombody she knew in the office and I must be crazy (yea that's why it has 6 threads on the Malibu crew forum and even a couple of new articles on line on it as always just me)
So these are a quick over view of only some of the things that were misrepresented to me by the dealer and the manufacture. This in no way represents the hours of research calls and personal expense went into these problems which Malibu hesitates and even trys to deny and to date has not resolved
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