Cali Marine

I have always thought of rainbow marine as a quality business. I even towed my boat from Arizona to have them work on it. But now that has changed. I took my boat to them for water in the bilge with it possibly being the transom seal or U-joint bellows. Water was flowing in quite fast. They inspected it an told me I needed to tear the whole rear of the boat down so the transom could be re fiberglassed. There wasn't enough structural integrity left. Repairs were going to be about $3500. Well to make a long story short I didn't have them do the work. Instead I tightened the bolts that hold the outdrive on, they were quite loose. Also the transom was still like new. No lack of integrity. This boat has barely been used and has been stored indoors in a dry climate. Problem solved. I put the boat in the harbor and drove it for an hour without a drop of water in the bilge. I know I should have looked at the obvious things like tightening bolts first, but I am not a marine mechanic. I went to them because I trusted them to give me the proper diagnosis. more

Thanks ekberaly, I appreciate you sharing your experience with everyone....good or bad. more

We had an extremely bad experience with Rainbow. We took our boat in with noise in the stern drive. The owner said he fixed the problem but that the noise would still be there due to normal wear and tear (3 year old boat). We took the boat out and got stranded on the way to Catalina when the sterndrive blew up. Otis at Rainbow said that they had mis-diagnosed the problem and that we should say we ran into something and that he would help us get it fixed through our insurance. We said we hadn't run into anything and wouldn't commit fraud. He said he wouldn't fix it either and that the cost to fix it would be $13,000. The drive costs $6,500 new! We are having to go to court. Cons: Unethical more