Brian J
New Member
An ad came up on craigslist for a 2008 Yamaha jet ski and this XP on a double trailer. I text asking if he’d sell just the XP, he said yes but it needs work. I already have two but I'm a sucker for seeing these restored. A 5 minute phone call later I find out it’s the old story of ran last year but doesn't now, cranks over but doesn't fire. He has to bring it back from his cabin so I talked him into bringing it by my house, which I think is great because he’ll be fresh off an 8 hour drive and sick of dealing with jet skis.
I get home from picking my son up at school and the guy’s in the street in front of my house trying to get it jumped started off a jump pack. 10 minutes later we can’t get it started, cranks a little but won’t fire, it did crank enough for me to do a compression test, 155 +/- in each cylinder (cheap gauge). No beeps, VTS not working, rusty spark plugs and gray fuel lines (no surprises there). While I was looking it over the guy mentions something about “I’m so sick of this thing, I would have just taken it to the dump but they’d probably charge me”.
I really didn’t want to take on another project but the hull looks clean and I figured it’s worth a low ball offer, if all else fails I can sell it as a parts ski. I told him a low ball price and “it’ll be out of your life”. He took it without hesitation, looking back I probably could have got it for next to nothing.
I bring it into my garage and start by pulling the battery and find the guy had only finger tightened the bolts for the old battery that was in there. I took that one out and put a good one in, got two beeps, it fired right up and the VTS worked. All the gauges work and still look new.
But it was running like crap so I pulled the carbs and old fuel lines, the internal filters were clogged 
so I thought I had found the problem to it running rough. Also did the rest of the usual stuff, VTS boot (old one was wide open), RAVE valves, oil lines, cleaned fuel selector, etc. But when I got everything back together it still ran rough and started hard. That was frustrating after doing all that work. After talking to Nick aka [MENTION=41828]Minnetonka4me[/MENTION] aka westsidepowersports and checking a few things he mentioned he suggested a new ignition coil. I put that in and it runs perfect.
So for a $50 part the guy dumped the jet ski, didn’t even bother to wipe the dirt off before showing it to me. And for a cheap price, some parts and some time in the garage I have an X4 delivered to me with all the gauges working, everything’s been done to it, computer says 83 hours, all the paperwork and if that’s not enough he bought 3 year tabs for it right before he sold it to me.
Funny story, after the deal is done and he's ready to leave the guy says "I have a spare key for that in my truck do you want it" Uhhhh you mean those keys that are $50 and have to be computer programmed to the machine with a programmer that dealers don't even have, no just throw that thing right in the garbage buddy. Yes I want the spare key :facepalm:
Minnetonka4Me came through for me like he always does, great service and had all the parts in stock.
I get home from picking my son up at school and the guy’s in the street in front of my house trying to get it jumped started off a jump pack. 10 minutes later we can’t get it started, cranks a little but won’t fire, it did crank enough for me to do a compression test, 155 +/- in each cylinder (cheap gauge). No beeps, VTS not working, rusty spark plugs and gray fuel lines (no surprises there). While I was looking it over the guy mentions something about “I’m so sick of this thing, I would have just taken it to the dump but they’d probably charge me”.
I really didn’t want to take on another project but the hull looks clean and I figured it’s worth a low ball offer, if all else fails I can sell it as a parts ski. I told him a low ball price and “it’ll be out of your life”. He took it without hesitation, looking back I probably could have got it for next to nothing.
I bring it into my garage and start by pulling the battery and find the guy had only finger tightened the bolts for the old battery that was in there. I took that one out and put a good one in, got two beeps, it fired right up and the VTS worked. All the gauges work and still look new.
But it was running like crap so I pulled the carbs and old fuel lines, the internal filters were clogged so I thought I had found the problem to it running rough. Also did the rest of the usual stuff, VTS boot (old one was wide open), RAVE valves, oil lines, cleaned fuel selector, etc. But when I got everything back together it still ran rough and started hard. That was frustrating after doing all that work. After talking to Nick aka [MENTION=41828]Minnetonka4me[/MENTION] aka westsidepowersports and checking a few things he mentioned he suggested a new ignition coil. I put that in and it runs perfect.So for a $50 part the guy dumped the jet ski, didn’t even bother to wipe the dirt off before showing it to me. And for a cheap price, some parts and some time in the garage I have an X4 delivered to me with all the gauges working, everything’s been done to it, computer says 83 hours, all the paperwork and if that’s not enough he bought 3 year tabs for it right before he sold it to me.
Funny story, after the deal is done and he's ready to leave the guy says "I have a spare key for that in my truck do you want it" Uhhhh you mean those keys that are $50 and have to be computer programmed to the machine with a programmer that dealers don't even have, no just throw that thing right in the garbage buddy. Yes I want the spare key :facepalm:
Minnetonka4Me came through for me like he always does, great service and had all the parts in stock.
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