Daves Marine Services LLC

"My boat was running fine (35-45 mph with no problem) except with a little tapping noise in the engine."

That means your engine is blown. Some people have unrealistic expectations, a full engine rebuild takes at least two days to complete and during the process other parts that may need to be replaced will have to be ordered once you discover they are needed and depending on manufacturer or after-market parts distributor they can each take from one day to several weeks to get in. In the Summer months we run on average (just like every other boat repair business, including dealerships) 3-5 weeks behind in inventory. Our yard can only handle 50-70 boats maximum and we receive 90-100 a month from May to August. We turn away business every single day in the Summer because we only work on boats in the order we receive them. No one gets special treatment. We have, since 2004, serviced over 4,000 boats and David has been a mechanic at every single dealership in the area so our policies are derived from those companies. We guarantee all of our work but strangely these anonymous internet posters never seem to want to bring the work back if unsatisfied choosing instead to shell out thousands of dollars on what they claim is shotty work. We know who this particular customer is and he drove over an hour to use our service because no one else will even work on his model engine. This person thought that they did not need to level of work and did not want to pay us for our work, wanting to argue in the hope of getting some kind of steep discount when we already charge less than any dealership in the area and David makes a point of trying to keep the bill as low as possible. We never touched this guy's electrical system and his boat was run in front of him for a half an hour while David explained everything he did to it. If the boat was not repaired why did he pay and why did he pick it up?
-DMMS

First of all let me say that I thought being factory certified would put Dave's Marine Services LLC above the rest, but I was wrong. They must have been certified in something other than marine repair services. This is how my situation is: I own a 1994 Four Winns Horizon 210 with the 5.8 Cobra engine. My boat was running fine (35-45 mph with no problem) except with a little tapping noise in the engine. So I thought maybe I should do a little preventive mantenance and take care of this tapping noise since the summer was coming up. Discovered Dave's Marine on the internet and after reading their web site decided maybe these guys could handle the job. They say that all boats are serviced in the order they are received (no exceptions-fair is fair). I left my boat at Dave's shop on March 9, 2011 and they said they could get started on it the following week. After three weeks I had not heard anything and called them for any info on my boat and they told me my boat was up next for repair. Two weeks later I get a call from Dave's and they tell me the engine has a bad lifter and we decided to replace all lifters since they are that far into the engine. They also said that the oil pump would need to be changed too and I agreed and ask them to change the impellers too at this point. Remember...my boat was running fine except there was a little tapping noise in the engine that I wanted to get rid of. Several weeks later I'm thinking they should be finished with my boat and give them a call. They tell me they are waiting on a part (flappers or something like that ?????). So I waited another two weeks and they finally called to tell me that my boat is ready. When I arrived to get my boat (5/19/2011) we go into their shop to give my boat a test run and I can't hardly beleive the way my boat engine is running. It is running so rough that it is shaking the entire boat and they called this repaired. Next, most all of the guages are not working and they were when I left the boat at Da