Victory Marine

I've known Bill for some time now and his knowledge and attention to detail are exceptional. I would highly recommend his services to anyone!

If I could give this business negative stars I WOULD!!!! They are the biggest scam artists I've ever worked with. I took my Bravo out drives to them to be tuned up and was quoted $2,200. Then a week later I get a call from "Little Bill" saying the gears and shafts need to be replaced and was quoted $7,700. I told him to do the work and he charged me. Because I had new motors put in my boat (thank god it wasn't by Victory Marine), I had to change out the gears in the out-drives. Upon taking apart the out-drives the mechanic from Gulf Coast Marine Services in Kemah found that Victory Marine HAD NOT done anything to the out-drives. The gears and shafts looked like they were the original ones that had over 300 hours on them. The only thing Victory Marine did was paint the outside of the out-drives to make it look all nice and new and charge me $7.783.18!!!!! My suggestion to whomever is fortunate enough to read this is to run as far away from Victory Marine as possible. Gulf Coast Marine Services is much more professional.

I took my dad's old boat, a 1992 Wellcraft Eclipse, worth about $3,500, to Victory Marine in March of 2013. The out-drive stopped raising and lowering at the end of last summer, and I wanted to get the boat ready to use this summer. Due to limited funds and a low-value boat I asked for an estimate before I authorized the work. The boat was supposed to be repaired for $475, but after paying and taking the boat, the outdrive still failed to lower when I tested it out.



I took the boat back to the shop and even though business had picked up they assured me re-repairs take priority. After 2 weeks I called to see if the work was complete and it was not, but they said they'd work on it and hopefully have it done in the next few days. When I went in to pick up the boat they presented me with a new invoice for $1,502, for parts and work that I never authorized. Needless to say, this was unexpected and far more than I ever intended to spend on a boat of such low value. Since then, my boat has been at Victory Marine and they have refused every attempt for me to negotiate.



I filed a complaint with the BBB, offering $525 for the additional repairs done, a total of $1,000, to Victory Marine simply to have my out-drive go up and down, but they responded extremely unprofessionally and later failed to respond, leaving the complaint with the BBB as "unresolved".



At this point my only option appears to be small claims court, another expense which may take the remainder of the summer to resolve. I have never dealt with a less professional group of people or been treated with such disrespect by a business. Do yourself a favor, don't do business here, or if you have to, get a lawyer first.

I took my Donzi with twin 525s for Preventive Maintenance at Victory Marine. Interestingly I found out They do not know what a “Used Valve” looks like & put a Used Set of Heads on one engine. This led to a complete tear down at Nickens Brothers where a Crack in one of the Victory heads was discovered along with a bad cam shaft. Victory did pay for the rework of the heads, but to add insult to injury, I was charged full list price plus for the cam shaft. What Really concerns me is the engines had 350 hours on them & with the installation of the bad heads by Victory, it probably would have been a catastrophic engine failure (of which would not have been their fault of course). The other issue I had was Victory rebuilt an XR drive & it lasted about ten (10) hours – Lost a complete upper & again was Not Their Problem. Nice folks, but be careful as to the work Victory claims to do.