# Help me price my raft!



## Ajackson (Jan 18, 2013)

More pictures.


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## smhoeher (Jun 14, 2015)

For what it's worth, I sold my older Odyssey bucket boat for $600, including frame (steel), oars, tools, etc. The floor needed more TLC but otherwise a great boat. Check out what others are selling in the Buzz classified section. Given the floor problems, I think you could get a grand or so.


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## BoscoBoater (Jul 11, 2006)

I'm not sure if you could get more than $500 around here with all the work that needs doing, but you probably weren't planning on selling it in NY in the first place....



I am curious what it is that caused all that damage to the floor. Especially that hole near the fill valve. That one really puzzles me......


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## Ajackson (Jan 18, 2013)

That is where the fishing frame has rubbed through.


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## Andy H. (Oct 13, 2003)

Without the AIRE warranty, it's just a 13 year old boat with a shot floor. $500 seems reasonable to me considering that someone's going to need to replace the floor after they buy it.


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## mikepart (Jul 7, 2009)

In the first picture, the tube look pretty sun faded as well, but it is hard to tell from photos some time.

I agree with $500 as is. That being said, if the tube material and zippers are in good shape, it could be worth it to fix the floor before you sell it. Just like a car, selling a raft that needs a major repair significantly reduces the value. With the floor fixed, it could fetch $1000-$1500, but I don't like AIRE rafts, so not from me.


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## CoBoater (Jan 27, 2007)

i dont' think that bottle of 303 is going to save your boat. boats beat, looks like its been left out in the sun for years on a trailor and wore to shit.


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## Ajackson (Jan 18, 2013)

Great reply! You know, up until about 3 years ago, this boat has spent the majority of its life in a garage, but thanks for your helpfulness. PS, you should know that 303 will never 'save' any PVC boat, but again, thanks. 


Thanks to everyone else for your replies. I will ship the floor off to Aire and get it fixed before selling.


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## GeoRon (Jun 24, 2015)

It looks like you enjoyed a lot of time in this boat reeling in the fish. Well done.

I beg to disagree about the 303 Used religiously and properly it will help prevent a boat degrading.

When you say cracked PVC, is it UV cracking and where. Frequently, the AIRE logo says a lot about the general UV damage but your logo looks to be in decent shape. Honestly, how bad is the fabric? In some photos it looks like it still has a sheen. Other photos, no sheen.

Did you get an estimate from AIRE yet. It may be better not to deal with the shipping and repair costs. It might be like remodeling a kitchen for $40k to sell a house that in the end you only get $25k more for after the upgrade.

Perhaps $500 OBO. 

But then again, how much spare time do you have. I've seen some beat up AIRE's refurbished and get decent dollars but that was only possible because of A LOT of personal time(not AIRE time and floor replacement costs). A compatriot of mine who had more time than money bought a ragged, butt-ugly Puma post swap for dirt cheap(didn't hole air anywhere and had missing D-rings). I thought he had shit for brains but he ended up selling that Puma for over $800 after using it for a season, and the guy that bought it was very happy. 

For example, since you say the floor holds air perfectly, put some patches over the floor voids(the floor bottom looks perfect). I say this because that hole under the captains bay looks like dry(wet) rot from perpetual dampness. Cut out that rot and put a giant patch on it. Keep applying elbow grease to the frame rub and that boat might(???) clean up and sell for $1100-1200(or more, it is an AIRE). If you do try to fix up and sell,,,, don't show the potential buyer these pictures


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## GeoRon (Jun 24, 2015)

Sorry, I missed the estimate from AIRE to replace the floor surface for $300.

I see you are in Dillon, contact RaftFix and Inflatable Technologies and perhaps skip round trip shipping costs.

Once you resurface the top of the floor have it looking new again, you can get well over a $1000 at the DRE boat swap. Perhaps $1500. However, that picture one bothers me. Send another picture of that end with the sun shining on it.


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## GeoRon (Jun 24, 2015)

This request for a price estimate brings something to mind.

I wrote a processing system for the Down River Equipment boat swap. It is still used to check in and process used boat information. The "info ticket/price tag" it generates is attached to each boat inside a plastic holder.

I pitched the idea to upper-most management to turn that vast source of annually updated information into a "Bluebook" for used boat pricing. I even entered on my time over a dozen years of information from previous spring and fall boat swaps. By now, over 20 years of used boat data would be available such as boat type, condition, asking price, sale price and a lot more would exist as a database. DRE would therefore be THE place to discuss used boats and sell used boats because we could run a quick query and generate a printout of how much similar boats fetched during a swap.

In the end, I felt like I was in a Dilbert cartoon where management is getting pitched with a brilliant idea that get shot down by a bureaucracy. But, perhaps, it just wasn't a brilliant idea. Oh well. Two sides to every story or level of perspective.


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