FWIW, drives are super easy to remove for the maintenance I described; it would be worth learning how to do it once to see if it's something you won't mind doing, assuming you have the means to work on the boat while it's ashore. For $460, you could buy all the tools you would ever need to do the work they will be doing. It ain't rocket surgery and the skills you learn could end up saving a vacation.
For example:
I had a gimbal bearing fail 4 days into a 16 day vacation on Lake Champlain, in Summer 2017. I put the boat on the trailer around 1 PM, pulled the drive off in the boat ramp parking lot to confirm the bearing was shot, drove 3 hours back to my house (and special tools) in NH to drop off the boat, drove to West Marine and back to get a new bearing, pulled the old bearing out that night (mosquitoes ended that evening earlier than planned), installed the new bearing early the next morning, put the drive back on, and was back on Mallets Bay on Champlain by noon. Did it suck? Yeah it did, but I only lost 24 hours and the rest of the vacation was awesome. If I'd had to wait for someone else to do the work in peak season, I could have lost the whole vacation.
|