Click for YF Listing Service Click for Nordhavn Click for Westport Click for Mulder Click for Abeking

New Azimut 50 Fly

Discussion in 'Azimut Yacht' started by Mike Jvel, Oct 19, 2016.

You need to be registered and signed in to view this content.
  1. Mike Jvel

    Mike Jvel New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 26, 2016
    Messages:
    20
    Location:
    Newport
    Who said this? "I haven't been involved with any of the newer Azimut builds. But have been involved with plenty of the older ones."
    I have a current (new) model Azimut under warranty with MarineMax and came to this forum to volunteer my time to report my current experience as an owner with Azimut and Marine Max. I was ready and willing to catalog everything on this forum, because I recognize the value of that information for other owners, MarineMax, and the manufacturer. I started out on a positive note. I didn't report anything consistent with the delamination of one swim platform one of the other senior members brings up each time a new thread is created. I didn't identify with the poor service experience with a particular Marine Max dealer another senior member perseverates on. Whatever I say here gets drowned out and discredited by a few senior members based on their experience with, "the older ones." On another forum, they called those posters trolls, but out of respect I'm not going to label anyone here. You guys can continue sharing the same stories with each other. It is not relevant or helpful for this current Model Azimut owner.
  2. Capt J

    Capt J Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2005
    Messages:
    14,432
    Location:
    Fort Lauderdale
    I've run several NEWISH Azimuts, I just have not managed one long term.......spending 30 minutes going through the engine room and boat to get the boat up and running tells me that nothing has changed and they're still building them just like they used to........
  3. Mike Jvel

    Mike Jvel New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 26, 2016
    Messages:
    20
    Location:
    Newport
    I have a rocker switch in the cockpit for the mains and helm buttons for ignition and start. There is no key to turn. The mains do have a breaker on them too. The generator has a switch in the cockpit, a breaker in the engine room, a switch on the generator, and a button on the electrical panel. Very simple, but a little different from Sea Ray. Again, unless someone showed you, yes, you'd have to figure it out. That's the benefot of a reliable forum. It is not a defect in the boat, but a defect in knowledge.
  4. olderboater

    olderboater Senior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 2, 2013
    Messages:
    7,132
    Location:
    Fort Lauderdale
    The more you make excuses for Azimut and Marine Max, the weaker your arguments get, Mike. Every one of those excuses whether it's power variations or that it's European or that it's no worse than Sea Ray, is a strike against Azimut. I hesitate to criticize an owner's boat, but when one comes here with no purpose other than to promote the greatness of a brand that the collective brain trust doesn't agree on, then that's not a criticism of that individual's boat but a criticism of the brand and, in this case, the dealership chain, as a whole.

    I do see you as a typical Azimut purchaser, in that your only previous experience is Sea Ray and your only dealership experience is Marine Max so you've grown to accept certain things as standard or appropriate. You talk about all the power issues and the idiosyncrasies of the boat, but Riva and Sunseeker are European boats and I've not had to go though such issues on either of two Riva's or on a Sunseeker. They were delivered without issues and I haven't had any since then.

    I've stated clearly that I know there are many happy Azimut owners. However, most have followed the same path as you have. You don't see them purchasing after owning other competitor's boats.

    Your "On another forum, they called those posters trolls, but out of respect I'm not going to label anyone here" is absolutely labeling and not appreciated. If you come in criticizing the forums members, that's not going to get you anywhere. If you feel you'd be better off not coming here, then no one is forcing you. I've tried to present perspective balancing your statements with those opposite.

    You yell that there are no other owners of new Azimut's posting here. Well, that tells you something. It tells you that those knowledgeable on boats of this size and type, choose not to purchase them, at least in the US and not from Marine Max. You keep wanting to compare Azimut and Marine Max to Sea Ray and Marine Max, but you have no experience outside of that very narrow realm of the industry. You want a real comparison, then list for me here every issue you've had, whether your fault or the marina's fault or knowledge or however you alibi it and then I'll list all the issues I've had with Riva's purchased from Ferretti America and then compare lists. I had a private discussion with a purchaser of a Sea Ray L Series and he loved the boat but his punch lists and warranty lists were lengthy and mind boggling to me and in his efforts to talk me into the boat, he totally talked me out of it. I could never have been tolerant of such a list or history.

    I'm critical of other brands, but they aren't in this discussion. There are several builders I'd rate below Azimut. I'm even critical of one highly respected builder and their entire commissioning program that leads to their buyers having to spend a good part of their first year of ownership going back and forth.

    If you've had to return to the dealer more than three times to get issues fixed, then I consider the boat to be a lemon. I don't care what brand or what dealer. Let me ask you this. If you had your boat in Fiji and had a catastrophic engine failure, are you confident in Marine Max and Azimut and your engine supplier? Or might you get finger pointing. See, the owner of a brand I do respect, had such issues and had people flown in who did the replacement. Yet, I know purchasers of a Boston Whaler with a Mercury Outboard from Marine Max who have been told the problems were their fault for not flushing the engine after every use and that it wouldn't be covered under warranty. Fortunately, Mercury didn't share the attitude of Marine Max.

    Your experience satisfies you and that's great. I don't want to lessen your happiness with your boat. However, if you want your opinion based on your limited experience weighed equal to the opinions of many here based on extensive experience, that's not going to happen. It's one vs. hundreds and the hundreds outnumber the one. I stood up yesterday against someone on another forum maligning a highly respected dealer because their attacks were inconsistent with general knowledge and opinion.

    Frankly, when you make statements that the issues of Azimut are not Azimut but they're buyer knowledge or they're all the marinas it sounds like you've been brainwashed into ignoring the obvious. We don't encounter those same issues buying other brands from other dealers. It's no different than the outboard flushing argument of Marine Max. Yes, every outboard says to flush after each use in it's manual, but people who keep their outboard in the water don't typically do that and their outboard keeps running fine. You argue repeatedly about Azimut being a European brand and that excusing certain things. Well, a huge part of their sales are in the US and it's a target market, so no excuses. I wouldn't accept those in the European brands I've purchased.

    See, you've become an Azimut and Marine Max apologist, not an objective and non-partisan reviewer. After you've owned a few other brands, then come back and talk about the greatness of Azimut and Marine Max and it will carry more weight. I do think Ralph and J are a bit harsh when it comes to this subject, but they're basing it on exposure to many times the number of boats you've had experience with. I must give more weight to their experience than to yours. It doesn't mean they're always right, but it means they've encountered far more boats.

    You want others to speak up as owners of recent Azimut's. Well, doesn't it tell you something that there are none to speak up? When I first asked about a brand long ago, when I first came here, I got all sorts of opinions. I got many who said fiberglass is bad and others said the only decent boats are Dutch, but I also got the views of several who had run many boats of the brand I was considering and who gave me long extensive evaluations in private and helped in my decision making.

    Ultimately, you're attacking the messengers. You're not going to win that way. You have an answer for everything they say and it's always someone's fault other than Azimut and Marine Max. You were far better off just stating your happy experience but not taking the battle on. Am I unqualified to speak on the subject because I've never owned an Azimut or purchased from Marine Max? You can say I am, but then I did my research and talked to many with more experience than me and made a conscious decision not to buy and I do have experiences to compare with yours and others.
  5. Mike Jvel

    Mike Jvel New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 26, 2016
    Messages:
    20
    Location:
    Newport
    We are so far apart in our understanding that I don't think we will ever come together. You're perception is that I'm making excuses by accepting that Azimut does not have the same switches in the same location or the same number of switches as a (fill in the name of your favorite boat). That is like arguing that a 1990 Buick is a better car than a 2017 Mercedes or Land Rover, because it takes you five minutes to figure out how to start the European vehicles it and put them in gear. You perceive my objective to promote the greatness of the brand, when I just got started reporting my ownership experience without any terrible problems the senior members reported in their anecdotes. There is no greatness in any of my posts here. You're style is to slam dealers and manufacturers for any little difficulty you experience or something you noted on a 10 year old boat, like figuring how to power up. I'm the messenger. You and others here interrupt and refute the message with your irrelevant anecdotes on the "older boats." I think I discovered why there is so little information on this forum. I feel bad for the moderator, who welcomed me in the beginning, because they seemed excited someone came on board to provide some current and useful content to attract others to the site. I'm out.
    Last edited: Jun 6, 2017
  6. Capt J

    Capt J Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2005
    Messages:
    14,432
    Location:
    Fort Lauderdale
    No, you came in here and stated your experiences and how great Azimuts are and how great MarineMax is and then went on to say that something like 98% of owners problems are the poor electricity on the docks and that is causing most all of their problems and it's not the brand and not whoever is servicing it.

    Mike I travel to marina's all over the country and this Hemisphere with all sorts of different yachts, it's a rare occurence to get shorepower thats really bad enough to be an issue. I would say 1 in 500-1000 marinas. In the past week I have stayed at 5 different marina's in 3 different states with a 60' MY. I didn't see less than 220 volts at any single marina, nor did I pop a single breaker. I agree that low voltage on your shorepower can cause a lot of issues, but it's rare and not the norm. I was running a brand new yacht straight out of the factory that only had 13 hours on it. I put 40 hours on it on the way down. We have one FB a/c flashing High Pressure, and a couple of other small items. We came in Sunday and everything started getting worked on the very next morning and we were able to talk to a factory representative any time of the day on Sunday (try that with Marine Max). The owner is then leaving for a 3 week, 1500 NM trip all through the Bahamas this Sunday.

    In my previous post, I wasn't talking about spending 30 minutes finding electrical battery switches and stuff.........I was saying in the 30 minutes of getting the boat ready.....checking fluids, overall condition of engine room, letting the motors warm up, that I saw enough of the build quality from looking around all of the area's, that nothing much has changed. If the way Azimuts have constructed the boats has not changed (using many sub contractors for all electrical and interiors), and the components Azimut uses has not changed, and the employees Azimut has has not changed, how much can the quality really change? The problem is they have no quality control on the electrical systems and the joinery and interior work. So they have 10 boats on the line at the same time and 10 different companies, each one doing the electrical in a different boat. All Azimut cares about is this switch turns on that item, but they don't look at how everything was done, how the wires are routed. They don't supervise them, they don't even really follow what they're doing, none of the wiring diagrams in the owners manual match up to anything. An Azimut dealer told me this only a few years ago as still the norm and if they have an electrical issue, they simply pull new wires as it's far easier than decyphering spaghetti. It sounds like you got a good boat electrically, but many other owners don't have the same experiences. I was offered managing a new 68' Azimut whose buddy of an owner I work for owns, I turned it down and his experiences with both the boat and Marine Max are far different than yours, but he uses the boat, it has gone to FL from NY and now back to NY, yet he still loves the boat not the issues. How many hours have you put on your Azimut and how far has your longest trip been?

    Here's a perfect example, one of Marine Max's largest Searay and Boston Whaler dealership in Florida, you can call their parts department, most of the time nobody answers the phone and you have to leave a message. You leave a message stating you need whatever parts and 9 times out of 10 nobody will ever call you back. SO, you either need to drive there to place a parts order or keep calling all day long until someone actually picks up the phone in the parts department. I wouldn't expect that kind of service from a metro pcs dealer, let alone a yacht dealer.
    Last edited: Jun 6, 2017
  7. Mike Jvel

    Mike Jvel New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 26, 2016
    Messages:
    20
    Location:
    Newport
    With all due respect to your experience and capabilities, you have reported most of that related to Azimut on this forum in other threads, correct? Please read the title to this thread and my first post again. How is it productive to hijack this thread to repeat what you have already posted elsewhere? I have 8 months of ownership and 98 hours on the mains to report about. The longest trips are 6 hour continuous runs through sounds and bays. Nobody is chiming in to say, hey, let him report his experience . So, maybe nobody comes to this forum. If any prospective Azimut buyers, owners, MarineMax, or Azimut are lurking it's got to be frustrating that my experience is being invalidated and even twisted to be greatness.
  8. olderboater

    olderboater Senior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 2, 2013
    Messages:
    7,132
    Location:
    Fort Lauderdale
    No one is invalidating your experience, simply stating it's one person, one experience. You're the one who hijacked the thread in post #5 when you brought up the negative reviews and experiences and then went into the electrical issues. You started the argument before anyone said one critical word.

    Then the thread died for a while and in post #19 you started the argument again, that Azimut is being treated unfairly because it's European and then that it was better than other US yachts.

    Then in post #28 you argued again,

    So far, there's nothing that I would say is worse than any new American manufactured boat. From that perspective, I have purchased and owned 2 new Sea Rays and a 6 year old Sea Ray. I have friends who also bought new and used Sea Rays, Formula, and Sabre. The new boat punch list of this Azimut is not longer. The function and reliability to date has been consistent or better than the boats I mentioned.

    Then in post #38 you turned on the forum and the negative responses and you attempted to invalidate comments from those who don't own an Azimut.

    As to prospective Azimut buyers, they need to hear all sides. You seem to want to present one side of the argument (and, yes, you're the one who turned it into an argument) and expect no one to present any other side. That's not how forums work.

    I can't speak for any others but had you just simply come on and said you bought an Azimut and loved it, I would have said great for you and not commented negatively about your new boat. However, when you began to argue against things you've read and then you introduced the electrical issues, that led to more comments.

    From your first post on October 19, no one made a single negative comment. Then on December 17, you opened things up with post #5. Then it died again from December 21 until you posted #19 on May 30 and went into the European boat defense. So, blame yourself for the direction of the thread.

    So then no one chimes in on your side and you then determine no one comes to this forum. I'd say more likely, there are just no other Azimut and Marine Max fans here. If there are other happy owners, I'd love to hear from them. Last time I recall an Azimut discussion there was a huge fan here of Azimut in Europe including the service available. Due to health, I'm said to say, he's no longer here. However, the experience there seemed far different than the typical US experience.

    I'm glad you have 8 wonderful months with your Azimut and that you're happy. We're all willing to say that's great. But you start to argue against other views and experiences and that's where you take the thread.
  9. Mike Jvel

    Mike Jvel New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 26, 2016
    Messages:
    20
    Location:
    Newport
    It's all yours. See ya on the water.
  10. alex48

    alex48 New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 13, 2017
    Messages:
    1
    Location:
    florida
    I would like to add my two cents on Azimut. Just purchased a 2009, 62 Azimut in May. It took me two months to figure out the electrical system. One of biggest electrical service company in Ft. Lauderdale had modified the system by installing multitude of breakers in engine room when the boat was new. The boat has a built in voltage booster on the primary line. That works fine until you increase the load with the air conditioners running then breaker pops. At this point have to take out the second cord and plug it in. After cruising for the last three months, so far three marinas had low voltage on the second line and one actually blew the electric on the dock and one of my contractors on the boat, thus I was no longer able to run on a single line. Had to repair that. One of the marinas knew that the power is bad so they quickly brought in a power booster for my second line, while another had to move me to a dock with built in boosters. Found out Newport, RI supplies 208 volts and during somber frequently goes down bellow 200.
  11. Ross Taylor

    Ross Taylor New Member

    Joined:
    Apr 28, 2020
    Messages:
    3
    Location:
    Tasmania
    Hi, does anyone know where the horn is located on an Azimut Flybridge Cruiser?
  12. Capt Ralph

    Capt Ralph Senior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 8, 2004
    Messages:
    12,649
    Location:
    Satsuma, FL
    From West Marine, A freon horn is about the size of a beer can and fits in your predominant hand. Button to sound is usually on top.
    It's a Mut. If you find the factory horn, it probably does not work anyway.
    West Marine Model # 19298314 .
  13. Scott Felstad

    Scott Felstad New Member

    Joined:
    Jun 7, 2020
    Messages:
    29
    Location:
    Jacksonville, Florida
    Totally with you, Mike. I enjoy your posts. Safe boating to you.
  14. CarverMike

    CarverMike New Member

    Joined:
    May 27, 2018
    Messages:
    2
    Location:
    Rochester NY
    I found my horn installed inside the radar arch upper cavity. You have to remove a panel to get to it.
  15. Ross Taylor

    Ross Taylor New Member

    Joined:
    Apr 28, 2020
    Messages:
    3
    Location:
    Tasmania
    Thanks CarverMike, much appreciated,Ross,Tasmania,Australia
  16. Roberto B

    Roberto B New Member

    Joined:
    Jul 23, 2023
    Messages:
    1
    Location:
    Vero Beach FL
    Thank you Mike for the very informative information. I am considering in purchasing a 2004, 40 foot Azimut they are priced very well compared to a newer one. Would you think I may be making a mistake buying one that is a 2004 ?
  17. leeky

    leeky Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 2, 2011
    Messages:
    381
    Location:
    Florida
    Roberto B, welcome to YF! You shouldn't count on hearing from Mike Jvel as he hasn't logged in to YF since March 6, 2019.