How/Why I bought my Toyota

[brad]

Cyclone led off on this with his story so I thought I would add mine.

Years ago I inherited a 1973 21 foot cuddy Seaflite (built in Utah) boat from my dad.  He saw it on the side of the road and picked it up.  It was just like the one he had when I was a teenager those many years ago.  I agreed to do the "fix her up" part and thus it became mine.  I stripped out/re-did (or paid for) everything including some major repairs on the engine.  New floor, seats, upolstery, fiberglass repair, new paint job, new instruments, steering.....  Two years later it was ready to use.  With the refurbished boat, I introduced waterskiing to my kids.  That led to kneeboarding, wakeboarding, sky skiing, wakeskating (not surfing with the outboard drive).  After a season or two, riding behind the old boat without a tower just didn't cut it anymore.  They wanted to go higher, farther...Thus I was in the market for a new boat.

I had noticed at a local boat show at the Utah Lake years earlier an SX Toyota boat with internal ballast.  I wasn't in the market then, but stored it away.  Since I had driven my 1983 Toyota Supra to 250,000 miles over 18 years before I donated it to the kidney foundation, I new that Toyota probably built a pretty good boat.  I was also very familiar with how a boat deteriorates with my fix up project and knew I didn't want to experience that again.

When I started looking for a new boat, I talked with my Malibu, Centurion friends and confirmed that to do the tricks my kids wanted to do, an inboard was the way to go with a tower.  I started looking for Toyota boats on the internet only to discover the company had just gone out of business 6 months before!  I located a few used SX's on the web and drove to Park City, Utah to check one out.  Sure enough, my memory on the quality of the boat was confirmed but I had concerns about parts, repairs and why Toyota had gotten out of the market.

When I learned that Marine Products was the Toyota dealer, I called the service department and questioned them about all these issues.  They noted that the boats were solid and parts would be available for 10 years.  I then tried to compare the options on the Park City SX with one I had seem on the web located in California (headlights, shower, heater....).  When I called Marine Products back to ask about upgrade options, Jeremy said, "we have a demo SX that has all the upgrades that we may be looking to sell."  I asked for the specifics and he noted that it was a 2002 SX with less than 30 hours and the full 3 year warranty was still in place since it hadn't been sold.

I set up a time to go see the SX (March 2003).  I took my dad (the same one that got me into the 1973 boat) and before we left Marine Products, I had put money down on the SX for delivery a few weeks later.

We've enjoyed the SX ever since.  We are now about to hit the 300 hour mark.  Thanks to all those who have contributed here.  I look forward to many years to come until I'm forced to donate it to the kidney foundation - assuming they accept boats too.

[lesman01]

3 yeas ago my wife and I decided to buy a boat. I grew up with boats my whole life until I went to college and we sold( or trashed )the family boat. We owned a Wellcraft runabout with a mercury 175 outboard. I learned to slolam behind that thing, but I always had to drag for like 100 yards for the thing to get on plane.

I always dreamed of having a MC or a REAL ski boat.

So we had a budget and the plan was to find a good used mc or nautique for about $10-15k or so. We looked at several boats over a few months but never found one that seemed right., My wife wanted a "family" boat and absolutely HATED direct drives with the big hump in the middle. That really put us out of our price range for anything less than 10 years old, which vdrives were not even made that far back. We even drove 2 hours to alabama to look at a mastercraft that would not even crank up and was trashed.

So we went to a boat liquidator up by Lake Lanier and they had a few mc and such. BUT, they had an Epic S22! What, Toyota makes boats? I am a toyota man. I have never owned anything but a Toyota vehicle (except the Acura I bought for my wife) 2 Corollas, 1 Camry, 1 tercel, 2 Trucks(Tacoma was the latest), and now a Lexus.

anyway, That thing was priced at $32k. (2 years old at the time with 80 hours)Just a bit above our $15k limit. BUt I started thinking....Get a 7-10 year old ski boat and have to pump god knows how much into maintaining it every year, plus the fact that I knew d*ck about inbord boats.....Or go with old reliable and suck it up and shell out the exctra cash up front.

So, doing research I don;t remember If i found this sitre, but I did find out about why they went out of business, they'll have service/part for 10 years, everytone said the boats were solid, and they may infact become MORE popular as a kinda novelty thing....Ok, whatever, but I got convinced peretty quickly after the test drive. THe thing was HUGE with space=Wife was happy.

I won't say how much I paid for it, but I do know that the owner had to pony up $5,000 to pay off his loan. Ouch...

Once I found this site after buying it, I learned how to do most everything and how most stuff works so I'm pretty confident at least knowing what to look out for. NO regrets. Never once missed the extra $10k+ we shelled out, and wish I could go out every day.

[tenn162000]

Fall of 2004 (Late Oct) I was sitting in my fraternity house (Kappa Sigma) when I got a call from the Army.  Beings on how I am in the Army National Guard this wasn't to out of the norm.  However, after getting off the phone I learned that I had just been put on standby for deployment.  After spending 11 months in one of the hottest countrys on earth and missing out on and entire summer of going to lake I knew that going to the lake whenever my friends go just wasn't going to work anymore.  I am a young guy at 22 but I used my money I had saved up and bought a 03' 4runner and traded in my Jeep.  A couple months passes and after buying everthing I had ever wanted a couple things on the list remained: a motorcycle (street bike), jetskis, and a boat, not to mention a P-51 Mustang (WWII AirPlane).   So I bought a motorcycle one day and a week later bought a pair of jetskis.  I wasn't happy till I found an awesome deal on a toyota BOAT the famous repo x22 on ebay.  Having bought the 4runner months earlier I knew I loved toyota from the start. So I learned as much as I could about Epic's and started bidding.  Won the boat in N.C. knowing full and well that it was more then I wanted to spend.  Sold the jetskis and motorcycle a couple days later.  After I picked up the boat and pulled her the 10hrs to Memphis I have dropped alot of time, effort, and money into trying to get my Epic up to the standard of all the folks on epicmarine.com and I have loved about 99 percent of it.

As to picking out a name so far the story goes: I was at the bar one night when one of my fraternity brothers who had seen the boat earlier that day walks up to me and says: "Schaf, you just can't hide money can you..."  So, "Can't Hide Money" kinda stuck  - But when I asked my mom if it sounded to cocky she said: "No, its just you."  - I am a big fan of having the nicest stuff around... Still haven't named the boat yet.  And taught my father how to ski yesterday!!! Never to old to learn...

[HCollado]

Well, let?s see;

In 1987 I bought my second boat a 19? Stars & Stripes Master Craft Comp boat. Use the living heck out of that boat. Even did competitive skiing in South Florida with the Ski Club of the Palm Beaches.

Then as the family grew, it was time to up-size and get something newer. Since I was employed by the Toyota Distributor, I knew that eventually they would come up with an employee purchase plan. In September of ?99, they came thru and sold the MC and bought our E22 (Price not to be disclosed).

We absolutely love our boat.

[Bitzco]

I bought mine because I'm cheap (even the richest guy in the trailer park can't buy much). I had been boating once at age 18 in a piece of crap something or other that could only pull a skier up if there was the driver and a small child for the observer in the boat. I got dragged around the lake for a while on two skies behind that thing and wasn't too impressed. Many years later, Fest bought some red boatish thing that I got pulled around on and that wasn't so great either. Then he bought a Moomba and we had some actual fun on the lake. I fell in love (not with Fest) and bought a Polaris waverunner and learned to board behind it. Since we were using it a couple times a week and nobody wanted to sit on shore, I sold the waverunner and started looking for the boat. I shopped around a lot. Then found an X-22 for sale by owner. I talked to Jeremy at Marine Products about it and he talked the Toyota up big time. He still thought I should buy a new Supra, but understood that I am a cheap sucker at heart. I found Pete here at Epicmarine (that was in the very early days of the site) and learned a bit more. I've been driving Toyotas hundereds of thousands of miles for years and decided the boat must be the same. I bought it and loved it. My wife wanted more space and I wanted more storage, so I sold it and bought the SX. It sank. So I bought another. Love the boat. I just wish I could use it a lot more.

[Bitzco]

I wonder where that sinker is now. Last I heard, it was running but not too well.

[tenn162000]

Always wondered how that one in the pix on this site sank?  Forget the Plug or Hit something?

[westtx]

When I was in college (wayyyyyyyy back when), my girlfriend's parents had a nice house on Lake Conroe (about an hour north of Houston). Most of our weekends were spent there getting pulled around by various Glastrons, VIPs, Invader tri-hulls, and the other popular boats of the late 70's early 80's. I had no idea an inboard ski boat existed until my girlfriend's dad brought a Ski Supreme back from the dealership for a lake demo. Until then, my usual method of getting up on a slalom ski was taking a deep breath, dragging my right foot, and if my breath held out long enough, wobbling around on one leg until I precariously moved my right foot into the back boot and stabilized my massive 225 lb. bulk.

On my first tug behind the Supreme, the seas literally parted with no water ingested and blue skies everywhere. I knew then that someday I would own a competition ski boat. 12 years in Colorado delayed the dream...we had a 20 foot Pursuit with a small cabin that was great for Lake Powell, and lakes in Colorado were so small that we usually wound up driving long distances and needed a boat we could camp in for a few days. I continued to admire inboards but from afar.

Fast forward to 2000, when I was back in Texas and working for Gulf States Toyota, Toyota's distributor in Texas and the Gulf Coast area. I followed the introduction of Toyota boats but was not in the position to pay for one as we had decided to eschew debt and pay cash for everything. Toyota had quit building boats when I finally had $30K saved in 2003. By then, we had moved to Midland and my dealer in Abilene recommended Tige'. I visited the plant there, and arranged to buy a 20V that had just been returned by a pro wakeboarder who had it on demo. They agreed to put a new Mercruiser in and the price was just under $30K out the door. Better yet, they could have the boat ready before our June trip to Powell. About a week before the trip, a Tige' VP called to say that the boat blew an exhaust hose and sunk when they were testing the new motor. Not wanting a boat that had been underwater even for a few hours, I passed.

Meanwhile, two of my dealers bought Epics at firesale prices (how does $18K for a new S22 sound?) I stayed away because the closest dealer (Phil Dill) was 300 miles away, and I don't have the time or skill to do much work on my own. Early this year, though, a Toyota boat owner referred me to Bill Nichtern at TMS, and he put me on to this site. Epicmarine.com gave me the confidence that I could keep the boat running, and I found an 1999 Epic 22 with 73 hours an made an offer. A few months later with 110 hours on the meter, I know we did the right thing buying an Epic. Amazing how many people come up to me, think the boat is brand-new, and ask where they can buy one. I think these boats will become as desirable as old FJ Cruisers some day. When Toyota makes only 600 copies of anything, you can count on public demand being huge. Even my daughter happily gave up her college fund to help out. Kids are great, aren't they!

Attached are a couple of pix of me (the fat guy) with the new tower and my son wakeboarding early in the morning on a great day. Thanks to Cyclone and Lesman for bringing this community together. I'll have my boat for a long time and need all the support I can get.

[PSullivan3]

Let me get something wipe asxdcvbnmk oops a tear got in the key board.

[Bitzco]

If you want to read the sinker story, read the thread "not sure whether to become an ex-Epic owner"

[ScarabEpic22]

I have always been an avid waterskiier and learned when I was 5.  Man, thats a while back.  My first boat was a 1987 Wellcraft Scarab 1 O/B.  That thing was perfect for Lake Washington as it takes the waves amazingly (much better than my E22 does) and has the speed aspect.  It has a tempermental engine, a 220hp Merc Laser XRi EFI, but runs about 60mph at WOT.  Too bad it burns about 12gph running there.   I started skiing behind my good friend's 94 MC Prostar 205 and the wake behind my Scarab seemed really big after that.  Needless to say I havent skiied behind my Scarab since.  Their MC was crushed after the storage building collapsed and then they bought a 97 Prostar 205.  I started looking for a boat about that time, but couldnt get the funds together.  Then, my ski buddy in Seattle gave his 20+ yr old Bayliner to his son and bought a 98 Nautique.  Man, I didnt need a ski boat anymore, but still wanted one.  Finally in 99 I started looking hard at the market again, but that was the year MC put a cheap plastic engine box on and it made the 35K+ MC look really cheesy.  The other ski boats that year were also dealing with the plastic box or something just wasnt right with them IMO.  I finally looked at an MB Sports because the dealership (Ski Masters) was about 15min from my house.  I saw the Toyota Epic 21 and fell in love.  The only thing I didnt like was the closed bow.  I waited a while and got busy, but at their annual promo night in Nov 99, I found a charcoal E22 #90.  Love at first sight.  I couldnt take my eyes off of it.  Then, I looked at the engine. And, Ski Masters threw in a 2000 "upgrade" package which gave me a rear swim handle, ski protector, and a few other things inside.  I signed the papers in late Dec 99 and they stored it until Mar 00.  I've been lovin it ever since!!