Benefits of Winterizing Your Boat

Check out New youtube video - Benefits of Winterizing here:  https://youtu.be/XGFWQc-bRB4

The Full Transcript is below:

Tim Panasiuk for Gibbons Motor Toys. Today, we're going to not talk about any new products. We're going to talk about winterizing.

I know it's crazy. It's almost 30 degrees. It's late August and here we are. We're actually still very busy. Rigging new boats that people have waited a long time for. And you know, there's a couple of boats that are brand new. There's a service boat. We've got snowmobiles. We've got off road vehicles, which go all season. But yeah, there's people even starting to think about snowmobiles already.

Anyways, the reason we want to talk about winterizing is just so that we have a plan and we're going to talk further about that here.

Reasons why winterizing is needed

Some of the reasons that people do buy our products to begin with and that a lot of people don't think about is with our heavy gauge welded aluminum product in particular, Our customers' seasons are much longer than, say, a fiberglass or a pontoon boat.

For as an example, lot of our customers are starting when the ice goes off in mid-April, and a lot of people use their boats even for hunting into late October, early November. The other advantage to in most cases, our boats are propelled with outboards. So as far as freeze up, there's really nothing to worry about. If you tip the outboard in it's vertical position, it's going to drain.

Even our inboards on our jet boats, most of them, although there are different procedures for different models. So you want to be careful there.

But in most cases they're closed cooling systems, meaning that they have glycol in them. So it's just the freshwater part of the system that needs to be drained when the temperature gets below zero.

That being said, when it's time to do your winterizing, what we're working hard to do and our service departments in both our Salmon Arm (BC) location and our Gibbons (AB) location is for our customers to text us or call us and book an appointment.

Advantages of Scheduling a Winterizing Appointment

The advantage to that is, is that you don't have to leave your boat sitting here for days or weeks while we're waiting to get at it. We can actually schedule an appointment and we're going to do our best so that you can bring in that boat at that time. And we'll have a time and a plan for when you're going to pick it up so that it's not sitting outside unnecessarily. We know that lots of people like to take care of the product. They keep it in covered storage. So we want to make sure that we're respecting that and turning it around as quick as we can.

Get Full Health Report of the Boat

Some of the other advantages of bringing a test to winterize is we can give you a full health report, meaning that if you request that we look everything over and give you some more information and dig into it further than just winterize we can do that. That's beneficial in terms of what you know about your product and how you can trust and rely it, rely upon it as well as even for resale value in the future.

And speaking of that, when you bring the boat to us, your records are going to be permanently stored with us. Therefore, again, for your own peace of mind or for resale value, we've got the records stored, we've got the hours recorded, we got the dates recorded so that if there's warranty issues or anything like that, you're covered because you've brought it to us to look after.

Perks of Having Certified Technicians Winterize Your Boat

We do have certified technicians working on your products. We're using certified parts, so we're not cutting any corners that way. We're not going to put any pressure on you for unnecessary repairs. We're just going to give you sound advice.

It's also a great time to have accessories installed. So when the bolts in for winterize in winterizing, if you're thinking about accessories for the following season, something that you've been looking at, there is a good time to consider doing it while we got the time so that you're not held up in the spring.

Another benefit to winterizing is let's just say that you are in need of a major repair. Not only can we get that repair done, but we can also finance it. So if you've got a major repair that's costly, we can look at the advantages of the finance option and get it done again through the off season, so you're ready to go come spring.

We Can Buy Your Boat

And lastly, there are some people out there that aren't using the product as much as they would like to. If you're one of those people that's found that, you use it at very little, not putting a whole lot of time on it, let us take a look at it. Maybe we'll offer to buy it from you. We'll pay your winterizing bill and make you an offer for it, and it's a win win for both parties.

So those are just some of the benefits of bringing your boat to a dealership such as ours, to look after your winterizing needs instead of trying to cut corners and look after it on your own or take it somewhere that's not certified. I think there's a lot of benefits. And when you look at the overall cost versus the value, I think you'll find that it's very fair.