Springwood Marine

[Katcaddy]

I have had a few calls with customers being concerned that Springwood Marine will no longer be selling or servicing Wellcraft and Four Winns boats. We are still very committed to both products in regard to sales and service we are just unable to bring the products in competitivley the way the dollar is at the moment but i do want to re assure all of our valued customers that when things change we will be full steam ahead. Both Genmar products are great it is just unfortunate that they are not competitive at the moment but that WILL CHANGE.

[disorderly]

Sounds like it's time to draft an advertisment and do what the rest of us mortals do to sell product..............pay for it...

[Jabba_]

Katcuddy,,, How about supporting more local products before importing from the states... Sell more OZ built boats, create more Aussie jobs, or help prevent a few from going down the gurgler....

[PinHead]

Jabba...there are plenty of these dealers selling US built boats. Have you owned a US built boat or shopped around comparing the local product to the OS products in some of the range that Four Winns build...if you did you would soon realise that the Aus built product (esp 2 manufacturers) build overpriced crap and a waste of money to buy one.

[ausandy]

jabba, sometimes its not that easy to get a boat franchise, we have been looking for a fibreglass range of boats to sell that offer quality and value for money for over 12 months. all of the big name brands have deald sown up and some others we have approched cant supply stock. we have tried the NZ option and freight kills it. andy

[Jabba_]

Jabba...there are plenty of these dealers selling US built boats. Have you owned a US built boat or shopped around comparing the local product to the OS products in some of the range that Four Winns build...if you did you would soon realise that the Aus built product (esp 2 manufacturers) build overpriced crap and a waste of money to buy one.

Yeah I have seen there boats (Well Craft), in-fact I near bought Four Winn's 4 years ago from Springwood marine at Labrador.. I drive past there shop just about everyday. As for the Four Winn's, is was near sucked in with all the gadgets and comfort... Then I looked a bit deeper and didn't believe the Four Winn's was built very well, and the quality was on the cheap side.. But the Scarab's look the goods... I never did bother stopping to have a closer inspection off the Scarab, but they do look awesome, especially that black one with the twin XS Merc's on the back

[PinHead]

if you thought the Four Winns wasn't built very well.I am glad you did not look at the local product then.

[Ocean_Spirit]

That's why he bought a Fry built Seafarer Pin Head! If you ever get a chance, have a look at the thru-hull cut-out from one of them and compare it to everything else.

[Jabba_]

if you thought the Four Winns wasn't built very well.I am glad you did not look at the local product then.

I agrea with what your saying, and yeah there is a lot of crap passing it self as Quality. I payed a premium to get quality and stenght, even thoe I bought second hand (3.5yo).. 35k for a quality second boat is much, much better then buying a new lesser quality model for the same price..

[PinHead]

That's why he bought a Fry built Seafarer Pin Head! If you ever get a chance, have a look at the thru-hull cut-out from one of them and compare it to everything else.

omg...perhaps you should read...where does Four Winns make a boat in the range and style of a seafarer..totally different boats. Compare apples to apples..make things a lit simpler.

[Ocean_Spirit]

PinHead,

Agree mate with what you are saying when it comes to design and function. We are comparing two completely different styles of boat here. What I was saying is in response to your comment about the quality of our local boats. Just like certain brands of US boats and others, you have your premium product where the company has a vested interest in quality and building to a standard. You also have brands that cut-corners and use inferior materials. Australian builders, by and large though, manufacture some of the best product in the world, and generally, stand behind their product very well. Moreover, Australian customers will not tolerate second-rate product.

When you talk to some of your professional repairers, you get an honest appraisal of the positives and negatives of each method of construction, and you will find that your more traditional methods have benefits over the latest systems some are using and vice-versa.

[Noelm]

and exactly which Australian Manufacturers do you regard as "Premium"? I mean premium, not just common or popular, I mean better built than the others! I think I know what some of your brands will be, and I still don't reckon they are any better built than others, but they get rave reviews from loyal owners, so the must be better!

[Ocean_Spirit]

Very subjective topic Noel! However, you generally don't get loyal customers if your product falls apart or retains crap re-sale value!

Bottom line is here, without arguing, the Aussie builders do deserve credit. There are a lot of hard-working men and women they employ!

[White Pointer]

G'day,

When the A$ tanked after GST was introduced in 2000 I thought the country was being under sold because of a US recession- and so it proved.

The Asian economic crisis was our next challenge and our manufacturing exporters grew because we were confident in our products and we picked our markets well.

The commodity boom has not helped our value add industries. They have enjoyed a domestic increase in demand but could not export because of the strength of the A$.

While the A$ has tanked so have metals prices, so it's not all bad. The challenge for producers is to get their suppliers to balance the raw materials cost against currency and things don't change much at all.

Support Australia and its manufacturing industries. We design better, build better and we are competitive on a level playing field.

White Pointer

[Noelm]

I fully agree that we should support Aussie products, been down that road for many years, and there is a lot of Aussie Boats that are great, but to say they are premium built compared to some others is a big statement, remember we are not talking about "gizmos" andstandard features, but build quality/strength, I also realise there is some very poorly constructed crap around some years ago, and a lot are biting the newbie hard now, but as a general rule, I doubt that almost any Aussie Boat is better built than any "brand" name on the market, but also I don't think they are worse either!