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first_boat_priyaOP
DeckhandSan Marcos, TX5 posts · joined Sep 2025
Oct 21, 2025 · 8:56 PM#1
i asked the dumb questions in the SunDeck thread a month ago and then went and did it. 2020 Tahoe 2150 with a Mercury 150, 160 hours, from a lender yard in San Antonio, sealed bid 26,800, financed through RBFCU like canyon_lake_weekends said, delivered to San Marcos for free. first boat i have ever owned. i took the Texas boater education course online the week before it came because i was born after 1993 and legally have to, which nobody at the dealers had ever mentioned to me.
here is the thread. the listing said "Lowrance HOOK Reveal 5 fish finder" in the equipment line and there was a photo of the dash with the unit on it. the boat arrived with the gimbal bracket on the dash, the power cable, and no unit. somebody between the photo and the truck took it.
i emailed the pace ace people that night with the listing line, the listing photo and a photo of the empty bracket. i am inside the 30 days so i want to know what people think i should ask for. i do not want to send the boat back over a 200 dollar fish finder but i also do not want to just eat it.
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merc_150_fourstroke
HarbormasterAustin, TX41 posts · joined Sep 2025
Oct 21, 2025 · 10:14 PM#2
before you do anything, look at the transom. the HOOK Reveal 5 comes with a skimmer transducer that screws to the transom on a little bracket, and the cable runs up through the rigging tube to the dash. if the transducer and cable are still there, all you are missing is the head unit, which is about 200 at Academy, and you plug it in. if somebody cut the transducer off too you are looking at 300 and a morning with a drill. that changes what a fair ask is.
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canyon_lake_weekends
SkipperStartzville, TX14 posts · joined Sep 2025
Oct 22, 2025 · 7:30 PM#3
glad you did it priya. for what it is worth my one listing problem was photos that took two emails, so i am curious how a missing item goes. my read of the 30 day thing on the site is that it is a refund deal for a lot that turns out not to be what the listing said, meaning the boat itself. it is not a "we will send you the fish finder" policy as far as i can tell. so i think the honest answer is they will offer you the full return, and you get to decide if a fish finder is worth unwinding the whole thing over. tell us what they say.
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first_boat_priyaOP
DeckhandSan Marcos, TX5 posts · joined Sep 2025
Oct 28, 2025 · 6:48 PM#4
ok, here is what they said. the reply came the next morning. they went back to the lender's yard, the yard confirmed the unit was on the boat when the photos were taken and was not there when it loaded, and nobody knows where it went. the pace ace answer was exactly what canyon_lake_weekends guessed: under the 30 day money back guarantee i could return the boat for a full refund of the 26,800 because a listed item was missing, and they would arrange the pickup. or i could keep the boat. there was no third option on the table and they said so plainly, which i sort of respect and sort of do not.
transducer and cable were still on the transom, so it really was just the head unit. i kept the boat. bought a HOOK Reveal 5 at the Academy in San Marcos for 209, plugged it in, works. i am not thrilled about eating 209 but i am not sending a boat i like back over it either. so that is how the 30 days played out for me: the guarantee is real, it is all or nothing, and it is on you to decide if the thing that is wrong is worth the whole boat.
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travis_lake_life
CaptainLakeway, TX27 posts · joined Sep 2025
Nov 3, 2025 · 12:20 PM#5
that is actually a cleaner answer than most dealers would give. i have had a dealer in Austin tell me a boat "came with" a cover and then find out at delivery the cover was a 400 dollar option they forgot to mention, and there was no 30 days of anything. keep the boat, fish finder is a rounding error on a first boat, and put your energy into learning the ramp at Canyon before the crowds come back in march.
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first_boat_priyaOP
DeckhandSan Marcos, TX5 posts · joined Sep 2025
Dec 14, 2025 · 3:05 PM#6
closing this out. 23 hours on the boat since delivery, most of them on Canyon out of the marina ramp, a couple on Travis. nothing has gone wrong that would touch the 6 month warranty, and i would like to keep it that way. one more thing for the next first timer reading this: the listing line that says the equipment is the listing line, read it twice, and if a specific item matters to you, email the pace ace listing contact before you bid and ask them to confirm it is physically on the boat that week. i did not, and 209 dollars later i would.
