"When you buy a boat and when you sell it." Last year my family and I bought a boat in Ft. Walton (about 100 miles from Marianna. It was 1996 24' Monterey Bowrider. Great boat for large groups and handled great in choppy conditions. On the way home from the dealer once we got on I-10, before we had it insured, I looked in the rear view mirro and saw smoke billowing from the right front trailer tire (it was a dual axle trailer). We pulled over got some bottled water and poured on the smoking tire and hub. It seems the bearing was shot!. Anyway after calling the dealership--no warranty, they suggested we take off that wheel and continue to some place to have it checked out. We did that. It was about a million degrees on the side of the road, but we got it done and limped home like a three legged dog. We took it to local boat shop and they fixed the bearing and replaced a couple of tires. So our first day sucked The boat, being a 1996, was carburated, not fuel injected and we always had a hard time getting it started after we had run it for a while. It seems when it got hot, fuel would "boil up and over the carb floats and flood the engine. It would start but you would have to turn it over for a long time. It was really a pain in the ass. Three weeks ago we took it to a local lake and again it played hell starting. Once when we were cranking it the battery cable started smoking. We poured the handy bottle water on it and decided enough was enough and it was time to trade. Well when we took it to the boat ramp, the power trim would not work and we could not get the boat up the ramp because the lower unit was dragging the ramp. Again it was one million degrees. We finally figured out if, we turned the ball hitch over it would lower the front of boat and raise the stern. It made the stern just high enough to clear the ramp and only plow a small furrow to the parking lot. We left the boat at the landing and had a mechanic buddy got check it out. He said we had fried the power line to power trim. He replaced it and we were good to go. We looked at several boats but eventually traded with the same guy who had sold us this boat. He had 2003 Cobalt http://www.boats.com/content/boat-articles.jsp?contentid=18762 a boat I had not heard of but found it is a hell of a boat. He made us a very good deal on our old boat and gave us only $1000,00 less than we paid for it and good price on the Cobalt which still has 2 years of warranty. Now for the rest of the story--We loaded up our old boat for the return trip to Ft. Walton. As we passed the Bonifay exit, I felt a rumble as a semi went by but looked to see the right rear traier tire on the boat trailer shredding. We pulled over and said #badword#! Having been through the drill before, we thought we would just take of the rear tire, take the boat the nearest tire store and slap a new tire on the bitch and keep going. No major problems except for one million degree heat as we took the right rear wheel. Threw the shredded piece of #badword# in the back of the truck and headed off. As I looked in the rear view mirror, smoked was again billowing off the right trailer tire. It looked like a NHRA burn out. We stopped an found out the remaining tire was rubbing the trailer fender. It burned the decal off the top of the fender. Next plan was to leave the mother #badword#er on the side of the road, go into Bonifay and get a new tire...thinking we might get lucky and someone would steal the piece of #badword# or a semi would crash into the back of it. We found a tire store in Bonifay called "Son's" Son actually waited on us after he repaired a tire from a Rascal scooter. Son was about 83 yrs old and had been in the tire business for 47 years. He did not have a trailer tire, but had an auto tire in the correct size. We said "Son we only got to go about 50 miles, slap it on and we are out of here. When we got back to the boat on the interstate, to our dismay it was just as we had left it. As we started jacking up the boat to put the new tire Son had booked up with, I felt stinging sensation on my foot and looked down to see my right leg covered in fire ants. #badword#! #badword# #badword# #badword#. We couldn't find the mound, they were just all in the grass. We really couldn't move the boat further up the road because of the tire rubbing. It took two tries to find a place on the trailer which would lift the axle high enough to put the new tire on. #badword#ing ants were eating my ass up. Finally we put down a white towel to stand on and about three times we had to stop and shake the mother #badword#ers off the towel. It was now about 2 million degrees on the side of the road and I was working like a one man NASCAR pit crew changing that damn tire. We got the tire changed and started again on the I-10 to Ft. Walton. My wife said, I don't give a damn if the Cobalt runs, we are getting rid of this piece of #badword#." As she was looking though the envelope with all of emails about the Cobalt and the buyer order form, I realized I forgot to get a cashiers check for the trade difference. #badword# #badword# #badword# #badword#. I called our bank and no officer was available, imagine that. Just before I asked my wife to get out of the truck because I was going to crash the whole mess into the side of bridge support @ Mach 2, I thought there must be a Sun Trust in the next town. Sure enough there was, We parked the boat in a grocery store parking lot next door and walked into the bank, still dripping sweat and my hands looked like I was bad mechanic. Damn they gave us the money we needed and we were off. We got to the dealership at about 4:15 and told the guy we were late because I got hung up @ work and had to stop at the bank. (We also cleaned up in the bank restroom). We took the Cobalt for a sea trial and wow what a nice boat. While we were gone they were to appraise our boat. When we got back they said they didn't have time to check it out and simply asked us if it would run. "Hell yeah it will run." We were good to go. Our salesman hooked up the Cobalt to my truck while we were filling out the paper work. I gave him #badword# about what happened last time and he said "not to worry Matthew, you've got 2007 trailer on this boat" I told him if I did not make it home, I would stalk him like a kill him and his whole family. He said no problem and by the way, "your hitch and trailer ball should be flipped over it is too low." I replied with a wink to my wife, "hmmm, I will have to look at that" We drove away and made it home without incident. New boat is great. Old boat was bad first day and last day!