Why did I post in this topic? OK, I'll humor you. Internet discussion forum etiquette: If a topic already exists about a subject, one does not start a new topic. I found this topic by searching.
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/postingThere are others, but this one had to do with the same model I have, an Adventure.
As to what I think of my kayak and Hobie in general, maybe you will feel better if I am more positive, but that's irrelevant. This is ultimately about two things:
- Product Improvement
- Customer Satisfaction
Product Improvement - Hobie should welcome this. This is my second Hobie kayak with a Mirage drive. The other one is a Sport, which I bought for my wife. I was so impressed with the Mirage drive, I convinced two of my friends to buy Hobie Mirage drive kayaks. I think the Mirage drive is an ingenious invention. I also like the hatches. I can tell that quite a lot of thought went into almost all details of my Adventure. I really love that kayak. I've had more fun than you can shake a stick at in the last almost two years, which is why I am so disappointed. I have repaired the Mirage drives I'd say 4 times because of things like cracked rollers, but I'd say that these occasional repairs are worth the trouble and I accept the fact that moving parts will wear out. I noticed that Hobie has made 2 or 3 generations of the Mirage drive by this point, so I can tell they care about product improvement. Good for them and I am glad to see an American company be on top of the heap. This problem with the scuppers is that they are trying to use the same feature for two radically different purposes. "The holes are already there, so why not use them?" is the mentality. Now we can see the problem with that and they evidently reinforced the holes on the Tandem Island (why that one and not the others I don't know - I confess ignorance as to the 2013 models improvements).
Customer Satisfaction - This is really do or die these days. I am the best advertisement for their products. I've already bought two myself and sold a couple of other people on them. I post pictures and GoPro videos on youtube and social media.
I was thinking about this yesterday while I was at work and realized that when I stow the wheel cart on the kayak (after putting in), the prongs if you will go down and I seemed to recall the angle being different now that my Adventure has been converted to an AI. I just checked it out and sure enough! The wheel cart used to go straight down, but the aka mount makes it so the prongs go in at an angle. Guess where the ends of the wheel cart posts are positioned when the plug in cart is on the kayak (the whole time I'm in the water)? Right where the big holes are. So we are talking about one bad thing (alignment of parts) on top of another. I'll post a picture later and you can see how this would cause friction on the inside of the scuppers, inevitably (at some time - hopefully before warranty expires) leading to a hole or pair of holes.
In case you guys have not seen pictures of the thin wall plastic, I'll post one up showing that, too. You will be able to tell by looking that the plastic is very thin there. How thin is it? It is thinner than Miley Cyrus's shorts.
I am still waiting to hear back from my local dealer. I've decided that if it comes down to them (not the company) repairing something or me doing it, I will do it myself. I am also not going to inconvenience them very much. If the company is 100% behind the product, great, but this store has been great. I can definitely solve this myself, but for those who have not had this happen to them, just trust me you would be very upset because unless you get creative and are really careful, a repair here is not like any other place in the kayak. You can't get to the "outside" part of the scuppers as far as I can tell. It is way in there. Difficult repair.