The Transom Saver The Dealer & My Wife
So we dropped our boat at the dealer to have a new trolling motor and fish finder installed. Got the call to pick it up and while we were there, the mechanic who installed the stuff is talking to me at the cab of my truck, telling me what all he did and explaining his notes on the work order. My wife is at the rear of the boat when the Manager comes out and tells her that he is shocked I don't have a transom saver on the boat. He starts telling her it's really necessary and before I know it shes inside looking at new ones as he's chatting in her ear.
I finally get away from the mechanic and tell her I just want to get the boat home and I tell the manager thanks for the great work and we start to leave. He won't stop about the transom saver and follows us outside and continues to talk to my wife about benefits. I finally just tell him I'll come back later in the week and manage to get out of there.
Now, my wife won't shut up about it, lol. She done went home, jumped on the internet and is adamant about us getting one. Well here is the deal about the whole thing. I had one when I first bought the boat in 2007 but there wasn't even a bracket on the trailer to connect it to. I had to buy a bracket separate and install it myself. I used the transom saver for about a year and all it did was mark up my lower unit a bit. One day I drove off from a lake having left the transom saver on the back of the boat and I guess it fell off along the highway but I went back and couldn't find it. That was 6-7 years ago and I've not had one on since then. truth be told, we didn't use the boat much over that time period either. Maybe 40 times in the last 6 years.
Now, about my boat and why I don't even think I need to bother with one. I have a Tracker Grizzly 1860 CC(center console) with a 50hp mercury engine. The hull of the boat has an all aluminum reinforced transom and the motor is not really a big motor. The transom is super thick solid metal, with a beam in the middle for extra toughness. I could take a sledge hammer to that thing and barely mar it up. I mean it's really thick and I just don't see how my motor bouncing around could do anything to it.
Now my dads old 14ft aluminum boat that's 25 years old and riveted has a thin transom and I can see why it cracked. It was built NO WHERE near the thickness of the one I own. On top of that, my hull has a lifetime warranty but no where in the manual does it say to put a transom saver on it. So in the event something did happen to my transom, I'm hoping Tracker would fix or replace it, but who knows when it comes to warranty work. I mostly drive on smooth roads and I think the rough water going across a lake on a windy day does more to jar the transom than my driving through the city.
I don't know, I guess I've drawn a battle line between the wife and the dealer, but I'm wondering if I should just give in and let her buy the stupid thing. I could understand if I had a 150 motor or up, but my 50hp mercury and the heavy jon boat style hull has me wondering if I'm just wasting another 30 bucks.
