TOPIC: LARSON BOAT WARRANTY DOESN'T WORK

Hello,
first of all I Introduce myself, my name's Giovanni and I live in Italy in a beautiful town facing the adriatic sea, called Marina Palmense.
I decided to write my story because maybe someone can advise me how to solve my problem.
Maybe there's a lawyer that knows how warranty works in USA.
In july 2008 I purchased a new Larson LXI 228.
After only 100 hours of use, divided in four different summer, in the last september 2011 I noticed a serious osmose problem afflicted my boat, I have to say that I keep the boat in the garage for the other 9 month, it goes in the water only in the summer. So I contacted the very kind italian seller who sold me the boat, since he's far away from me (200 miles) he told me to contact a technicians in my city that prove the osmose. And so I did, the technician come with an electronic machine and detected an high percentage of osmose on the hull, after that he broke some of the bubbles and a thick and smelly liquid came out.
I took a lot of pictures and I sent all to the dealer. He contacted Larson company and told them about my problem because my boat has a warranty and he made a quote to fix the boat.
After four month and several emails I got a response from Larson, they say they can only help with 2500 USD nothing more I must take care for the rest, the problem is that to fix the boat in Italy it takes more than the double of that as the quote of their seller prove.
I replied them that I don't want any money but I would like to have my boat in perfect order, as everybody expect after a spending a large amount of money.
Now the italian dealer says that he can't do nothing and Larson doesn't want to fix my boat,
they wrote me to "accept the 2500 USD or they withdraw the offer.
In Italy Larson boats are very expensive but, at that time, I decided to buy one just to have an high quality boat without problem (I believed), to have a "LIFETIME WARRANTY", to have "A BETTER BUILT BOAT" as they say in their slogans but all I got is an unusable boat ruined by osmose.
Maybe I was unlucky but if warranty exist it must be for a reason.
Now I feel so stupid to have bought a Larson, I feel like I throw my money away.
I worked hard to save money to buy the boat and now I cannot believe that "AN AMERICAN CLASSIC COMPANY" can treat customers regardless of their problem.
I understand that things can happen but everyone must accept his own responsibility and if there's a problem it must be solved in a friendly way.

I will be grateful to anyone who can help me finding a solution.
I apologize for my poor english but I hope you could understand.

P.S. I'm sorry if I wrote in the wrong section, but I was a little confused in a new forum.

To make a long story short; Larson, Glastron, 4 Winns, Carver Yachts, Marquis and what ever other brands they owned all filed bankruptcy back a few years ago.

The companies were split up & sold to a few investors thru the courts. Unfortunately, Larson, Carver & Marquis all ended up still being owned by Irwin Jacobs (also known years ago as "Irv the liquidator") who was the original owner thru his Minstar and then later Genmar companies.

I believe they quit paying dealer rebates on non-current models & left some warranty work unpaid too. I suspect their $2500 offer is all you will see.

To be fair, Irv did save Larson from extinction back in the 70s. Back then in his "Irv the liquidator" days, he owned Lund thru some involvement that also included Arctic Cat, Silverline boats of Morehead, MN and probably some others.

Genmar (basically Irv) was a chronic complainer about Mercury Marine and their dealer/builder programs being unfair back a few years before the bankruptcy. Just prior to filing there was no indication of any real financial problems. Truth be told, it would seem hard to believe that every other boat builder had downsized &/or even shut down production but Genmar had no problems. When they filed, it became obvious there had been some smoke & mirrors covering the problems. In retrospect, it would only stand to reason they too had the same poor market conditions of their competition.

I know nothing to help but I hope you get a resolution. You should not be having these problems.

unfortunately blistering happens in fiberglass production. your best bet may be to take the 2500 and fix it. I am sure you will still be happy with the boat in the long run however I know it will also leave a bad taste in your mouth so to speak because you had to deal with it in the first place. Maybe your odds would have been better if you noticed the problem sooner in the boats life rather than later even though you have only used the boat a little bit over your time of ownership.

Good Luck with it.

I have had to deal with this warranty issue several times, unfortunately not to the satisfaction of the customer. Warranties are only as effective as the laws on warranties in the country in which the boat was sold. So if you bought the boat in Italy then Italian laws apply. You cannot enforce a U.S. warranty on a boat sold in Italy. To make it worse, warranty laws in the USA (the Moss Magnuson Warranty Act) are very weak. The strongest warranty laws are state laws on consumer protection (these are not Federal laws) and can only be enforced in the state the boat was sold, and in this case not at all because the boat was sold outside of the USA. I can remember a similar case of a Sea Ray sold in Malta, and the owner never did get any compensation. The only recourse you would have would be to come to the USA and file a civil suit in Wisconsin (were Larson is located) and that would cost you far more than just fixing the boat.

So, I would echo the suggestion that you accept the offer and get the boat fixed. Blistering (what you call osmosis) is an all too common problem and if it does not affect the structural integrity of the hull (if it is only a cosmetic problem) then it would probably not be covered by the warranty anyway.

I know one thing from this thread, If I was buying a new boat knowing about a Larson warranty would keep me from looking at it.

If you buy a boat in the US the warranty is enforceable, doesn't matter what brand it is. But if you buy a US built boat outside the US then you need to make sure the warranty is enforceable in the country where the boat was sold. I thought ( I could be wrong) that the European Union had laws concerning this.