Axis Wakeboard Boat Forum

We bought a new 2016 A24 with the PCM 450 motor and it has been a nightmare since the first day. The motor will overheat when restarting and sitting at idle as if it is not sucking water or air has gotten into it. But when you goose it or throttle it above 3300rpm it suddenly starts cooling down instantly. Dealer has tried all sorts of stuff from adding hoses, re-routing hoses, and bypassing certain things all together to find an answer and still no answer or fix. PCM is scratching their heads too. We also get check engine lights while running, and service required lights, every single time we are out in it. The motor never looses power or hesitates but if we are cruising at 3300 rpm and then push it up to 5000 quickly for a few seconds, boom, service required light comes on. Plus the just random times they come on for no apparent reason. This has been an ongoing battle with the dealer, PCM, and Malibu and I'm about to hire a lawyer and have the boat bought back as this is only the icing on the cake with the other issues this boat has. Its as if it went down the line and a drunk 5 year old put our boat together and painted it. Any other 450 owners having issues?

What fault codes are you getting?

Is there a lemon law for boats? or just cars?

I have the 409 engine and have noticed that when I first start my boat and it idles the temp will creep up to around 208-209 but after about 5 minutes it will go back down to 160ish. I've only had the high temperature alarm go off once. My service required alarm has gone off only a couple of times but it was around the 20 hr and 50 hr mark so I just thought it was because of the pending oil changes. No fault codes appeared that I know of.

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Think it depends on the state.. but I know for a fact there is one in WA for boats.

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There is a TSB out for my 409 overheating, the tech at Tommys told me the engine would bleed out at times and at low rpm the water pump doesn't have enough suction to get water flowing again, with a quick blurp to 2500 rpm will start water flowing ( worked every time). There is a repair kit from PCM and I'm just waiting to winterize it before they install the fix

That's good to know. I'll talk to my dealer about it

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Do you have a link or any further information? My understanding is that Washington State lemon laws only cover passenger vehicles and motorhomes (not boats).

The codes the boat is throwing are SPN 94 FMI 1, SPN 110 FMI 15, SPN 442 FMI 15, and the dealer can't find the cause for any of them. The motor never loses power or stutters and runs strong but just randomly check engine, engine malfunction, and service required lights come on. The dealer added the "kit" for the over heating issue and it still would over heat at idle on restart so they bypassed the heater core and that appeared to fix it but we didn't get to run it as much to really test it out. They reconnected the heater core and it starts climbing well over 188 on restarts. The dealer said Malibu and PCM had talked about adding a pump like they used to have on older boats and I told them if you add something or bypass something on my motor that is not being done on all the motors I will hire a lawyer and you'll buy my boat back plus interest. They are sending a tech from PCM next week to do a ride along with us. But I can re create the check engine light and service required light when cruising at 3300-3500 rpm and then throttling down quickly to 5000-5100rpm and about a second later the light comes on. Every time. Dealer said last time the only code they saw after clearing all the previous codes was an over heat code but this was one of the days it actually didn't overheat. And we've never let it get above 210 when it did overheat and that was just to take video to send the dealer and Malibu.


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On the overheat thing just add a pump like indmar has done for years. As far as I know, Pleasurecraft doesn't have a lot of experience running the 6.0 with raw water cooling in wake boats.... the zr 409s and 450s that have been in the nautiques and centurions for years have all been close cooled. But Indmar 6.0s with raw water cooling also had a similar overheat issue that seems to have been addressed by adding a magnetic heater pump to the heater circuit (Bakesonline.com carries them). FWIW, I got closed cooling on my 450 (run on alkaline lake) and heater works flawlessly, no idle issues.

Adding the pump is gonna be WAY cheaper than the first invoice from your lawyer, especially if you get the dealer to pay for it. It should also improve your heater performance, especially with the key off.

On the codes, are you getting those numbers from the dealer or from the dash menu? My 450 has thrown a service required code for about two seconds on restart a couple of times, but when I go into the active codes menu nothing is there. Boat otherwise runs normally and all gauges read normal (no overheat). So I've just been chalking this up as a "get the dealer to look at it at end of season" kind of thing.