MasterCraft Prostar repowered - to buy or not to buy

wahnamch

Cadet
Joined
Jul 9, 2009
Messages
25
Our old boat (31 year old 19 footer with Volvo Penta AQ175A) is just about done for. Regular engine issues, cracks (small) in the upper hull, upholstery cracking, etc.. So we are now in the market for a replacement.

We spend most of the time just driving around the lake and also have the younger generation (20's) water-skiing and wakeboarding. Because of the place we have to keep the boat (on a buoy), we are limited in size (max. about 6m).

Looking around the market here in Switzerland, I found a MasterCraft Prostar 190 from 1994 which has been used by a wakeboarding school on the lake (all fresh water in Switzerland :D). It has a Jobe wakeboard tower, which looks excellent. They have replaced the engine (what does that really mean? Is there something we have to be careful of when viewing the boat?) with an Indmar MasterCraft with 280 HP. The new engine has just 8 hours run time whilst the boat itself has seen almost 2000 hours. Checking the Indmar website, they haven't supplied engines to MasterCraft for a few years, so this has me scratching my head.

The wakeboard school has a new boat and is a licenced MasterCraft dealer. They are offering a one year warranty. From the photos (yes, we will be viewing and testing the boat), everything looks in pretty good order considering the age.

Any thoughts on this possible purchase? I did read the checklist at the top of the forum, but I still would like some direct inputs if possible.

Thanks in advance for your inputs.
 

Scott Danforth

Grumpy Vintage Moderator still playing with boats
Staff member
Joined
Jul 23, 2011
Messages
50,412
Indmar, Ilmore, Pleasure Craft Marine (including crusader), Mercruiser, and Volvo Penta all supplied ski boat manufacturers. all of them used motors from GM or Ford (short period of time).

Most likely your GM 5.7 liter motor was replaced with a GM 5.7 liter motor

I would not worry much about it.
 

wahnamch

Cadet
Joined
Jul 9, 2009
Messages
25
Thanks for that. Feeling a bit more confident about going to view the boat in the next couple of weeks.
 
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