Carver Owners Forum

Well with the current boat pretty much sold, we have one to look at soon and would like some opinions the 3897 Santego, .......like the boat but engines have 1400 hours and are the 340 HP, 7.4.....so any opinions out there in Carver land....Also is mechanical work easy on this one, fuel tank life would be another concern ?? My assumption is that this has the top hat stringers and cored sides and decks, correct ?? Thanks guys

Well a quick update as we made a long trip to check out this boat.Great layout , wide, nice bridge and walkthru,boat access is good as well. We have never been on one of these and much like our old 80's Mariner the bridge is great.There were some interesting findings as always and if this continues on we will see, still big hours and I could not figure out the holding tank set up, did not find fuel tanks ( not enuf time )......comments anyone???

1400 hours is quite a few. You may want to get a driveline survey as well as the normal hull survey before you buy.
Or have it discounted enough to cover new long blocks.

Good Luck!

While 1400 hours may seem high, the concern should really be whether they were maintained properly and regularly, and how the vessel was used. If they were looked after I suspect those workhorses will still have a lot of life left in them. But that's the question; were they? Ask for service records and do some mechanical checks; compression, hook up a vacuum gage, oil analysis, etc. At least then you'll have a better idea of their condition.

Thanks guys.....the one thing that always bothers me about 1000 to 1400 hour big blocks in heavy boats is not so much the use for you at the time ,but after three or four years you can be at 1700+ and the boat becomes a rather large dollar loss and difficult to sell.....maybe if the rest of the boat is in above par shape, it can be bought right and just change the engines out , considering engine changes in this model appear to be fairly simple or so it appears to me after being down in engine compartment.

You need to weigh the options; if you want less hours, you'll need to spend more money to buy a newer boat or look for one of the same age with little hours which isn't always easy to find. Having said that, personally I wouldn't feel any more comfortable with a 30 year old boat that only has 500 hours. That means the engines saw very little use and have sat idle for most of their life which is also not ideal so I'd still be going through the same mechanical checks. The good thing is that 7.4s are a dime a dozen and everyone has parts for them. The only thing that may be a little more difficult to source for earlier vintages is a cam for a counter rotator, but they are out there.

Viper, I agree about the really low hour 30 yr boat.Good advice about the service records.We have not even started it yet, waiting for our boat to close.

We just had a quick look at this model and really liked the layout and width, size...seems like an overall good design ,would be perfect....like that you can remove 3 deck plates and work on engines, genny etc with out going thru salon floor. Hoping someone with a similar model could chime in with some pros and cons of the model.

I have some limited engine experience, have always loved making an engine run, I think its a sickness lol ( raced for years, built my share ), I just have no feeling of what to expect from BB marine engines as we have only had SB marine (250 HP) so far.

I suspect she has Walter V drives in the salon. Check the condition of the oil and try to find out if they've ever been rebuilt.

The other red flag that comes to mind is whether this is a fresh or salt water boat. A salt water boat would have an additional set of concerns requiring some consideration.

Are the engines fresh or raw water cooled?

Viper wrote:Source of the post Are the engines fresh or raw water cooled?

Raw water, interesting I don't remember seeing any inlet strainers either, only on the AC intake.Previous Carvers we have looked at in this size and price all had the strainers etc.

Seems to be a fresh water boat judging by the registration and the lack of green brass fittings.I will have another look with the trusty electrophysics to see if we will go further.Hope its good as we really like this one, will check the drives as well. ...happy fourth

I think the strainers were either an option back then or just not part of the design as there have been several comments about that by other members. Mine is an '89 and it only has a strainer on the AC intake as well. I've already bought strainers for the engines, genny and raw water washdown intake. Really depends on where you boat. In my area, there is a risk of takes on some weeds and other debris.