Personal Watercraft Maintenance
Now that the weather has warmed up, it’s time to pull your personal watercraft out of storage and hit the water! But wait—have you performed any maintenance on it lately? Just like any other vehicle, your personal watercraft requires regular care and attention to ensure it remains in good working order. You don’t want to get ready to ride only to find that a crucial component is in serious disrepair, after all.
Not sure how to keep your PWC functional? This guide to personal watercraft maintenance is provided to you courtesy of the fine folks at Crossroad Powersports, located right here in Upper Darby, PA. Follow these tips and you’ll be able to get your watercraft ready for the coast in no time!
Read The Manual
The very first step you’ll want to take with personal watercraft maintenance is to know exactly how your craft functions and where all of its controls are. You can easily school yourself on this by perusing your owner’s manual. This guide is made to tell you exactly how to operate your personal watercraft, where all the controls are, what functions they perform, what types of fluids to use and so forth.
Make sure you keep the manual somewhere you can easily access it so you can make note of all the maintenance you perform, as well as the date it’s performed, and any repairs that are done or parts that are replaced.
Use The Proper Fuel
Leaving your PWC in storage for a while can leave it vulnerable to corrosion if you’re not careful. For example, the gas tank should be filled completely with a fuel stabilizer added to prevent it from separating. Don’t try to cut costs by using high-ethanol gasoline in your watercraft. While this works just fine in a passenger car, marine engines are designed to work on pure gasoline. They can’t run well or at all with the typical 15% ethanol percentage you’ll find at most gas stations. If you own an older PWC with a two-stroke engine, then you’re going to need to mix gasoline and oil for it to run properly. You can consult a mechanic to determine what the percentages should be.
Break The Engine In Slowly
If you’ve just purchased a brand-new PWC, you probably want to go full-throttle as soon as you launch it at the dock. Don’t! This is exactly how you shorten your engine’s life and reduce your personal watercraft’s performance. You’ll need to break in the engine slowly over the course of about two hours. This might sound tedious, but trust us when we say that your patience will be rewarded with improved performance and motor longevity!
Start out by riding at ¼ of your engine’s full speed for about twenty minutes. Move the throttle up to half-speed to ride for the remainder of the hour. Push it up to ¾ speed for another hour, then finally open up the throttle and zip across the water at full speed.
Flush After Every Ride
Whether you’re riding off the Atlantic coast or in a nearby lake, you’ll want to flush out your engine after each ride. Saltwater can be extremely corrosive if left to dry and settle on your PWC, particularly within the engine, but freshwater is filled with algae, sand, dirt and other debris that can also clog up the motor.
To flush the engine and remove all that debris and salt, you’ll need to hook your PWC up to a freshwater source (a simple garden hose will do) and turn the water on, starting the engine so that it can push the water through. Engage the throttle every so often to push more water and debris out. Don’t use saltwater to flush your engine and never twist the throttle after removing your PWC from the ocean, since you can cook the salt right into the motor!
If you take the time to learn how your PWC functions and how best to take care of it, you’ll be able to enjoy it for a long time. Still don’t have a personal watercraft of your own? Stop by our location in Upper Darby today to check out our available selection of new and used personal watercraft for sale. Crossroad Powersports proudly serves the cities of Philadelphia, PA, and Wilmington, DE.