I’m thinking about buying one of the top premium models from Sea-Doo or Yamaha.
What matters most to me is engine quality, reliability, and long-term durability. I keep hearing mixed opinions — some say Sea-Doo is better, while others say Yamaha is more reliable and better built.
I’d especially like to hear from people who have owned both.
Which would you choose and why?

Hey y'all,

Recently purchased a used 2005 Seadoo GTX 155 Wake Edition. I've been out on it 5 times now, including the water test on the day I bought it.

I'm mad at myself overall. The seller was chill and worked around my schedule, had multiple ski's to show me (he is a mechanic and flips them) and after passing on the two older 2 strokes he had because of a bunch of hull repairs, he shows me these two GTX wake's he had.

The non supercharged one was pretty clean and he could see me really eyeing it so I went with him to water test it. Now I've ridden dirt bikes my whole life but don't have much experience with PWCs or boats so I didnt really know what to look for other than what I read about online.

All in all, the ski was fun. I had a blast testing driving it and other than the faded gauge cluster screen, all seemed to be in order. I bought it.

Fast forward to the first day I take it out after purchase and it won't start at one point. Figured it was an old DESS key connection because after playing with it I got it to fire up.

3rd time out it died on me after an hour and I had to flag someone down to get me close to the marina and then paddled back the rest of the way. Multimeter reads under 12v. change the battery.

4th time out now with new battery and a new gauge cluster screen (I fixed it) so now I can see my gas, I see I have a sensor alarm, and I have a flashing maintenance light. Old owner said that was because he changed the oil and didnt have the software to reset it. All in all, it did well for the 2 hours I was out but when I was approaching the marina had a loud long beep but no new errors on screen. Parked it and left.

5th time out and all seems normal, once again getting ready to pull into the marina and I get a flashing 12v low error.

It's getting so frustrating at this point trying to just go have fun. The ski was 800 dollars over what I wanted to pay, ive dumped another like 600 into it now with little fixes, lots of ruined and cut short trips. Id almost rather be financing a brand new one that I know wont leave me stranded.

its my fault overall I just dont know if I should keep repairing it, try to sell it, ask the old owner to the do the work and maybe get a better deal, I just dont know and im pissed that I was ignorant and picked a bad apple.

UPDATE: Thanks everyone for all the advice and the thoughts. Pretty much all of you are correct. It's an old ski. It's gunna have issues. Unfortunately I'm just going to have to 1. be OK with taking some shit apart and maybe breaking it more while I figure out things. 2. find someone that can fix what I cant. doesnt make sense to get rid of the machine...I have a mechanic coming down to the marina to take a look at it this week since im slammed with work.

A local auction was selling a Sea-Doo LRV DI. The listing said it had bad compression, but I knew a shop that could replace the engine for a low price. After I got the new engine installed, I decided to test the jet ski before taking it to the lake (over an hour’s drive away).
I took it to the local river, and twenty seconds into the ride, a rock got sucked into the propeller. Yes, I am an idiot. It took months to get that fixed because the mechanic couldn’t find the special tool required to remove the impeller.
When I finally got the jet ski back from the shop, the safety disconnect lanyard crumbled from sun exposure. I bought a new one from Amazon, but then the jet ski wouldn't start. That's when I found out the safety disconnect is actually a coded key that needs to be programmed to the computer.
So, I drove to a different shop an hour away to program the key. We tried to start the engine with the new key, but it wouldn't crank—it sounded like the starter was shot. The shop then told me they won't work on it anymore because they have no way to source parts for such an old model.
Now I’m stuck with a broken jet ski that I’ve spent a ton of money and time on, and I’ve only actually ridden it for twenty seconds.
Learn from my mistake: it’s cheaper to rent.

I’m 5’3” and 104 lbs, and I’m going to ride a big Yamaha jet ski on a rental for the first time. Any tips for a beginner? Especially how to do those sharp turns/curves? 🤙

First time Jetski owner. Had a bad Facebook marketplace purchase so took it to local Jetski mechanic for repairs. Dropped off the 2 Jetskis end of March. Still have not received them back and unable to get hold of the mechanic. Not sure what to do. Any advice would be appreciated

I have a Kawasaki stx 160x now and I m looking to either buy a new Kawasaki stx lx or a Yamaha fx cruiser ho or I d really like to go with a supercharged machine either Yamaha or Kawasaki just not sure if it’s worth the extra money. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hey guys. With seadoo releasing their 2027 lineup today, it had me wondering when Yamaha would do the same. When are they announcing the new lineup? Do we think this will be the year they drop the 1.9L SVHO engine? What else is there to expect?

TL;DR: Failure to properly tighten the fuel cap caused it to back out and fly off without me realizing it until I was 15 miles away from my launch at a Lake Michigan beach. I’m certain a fair amount of water got in before I noticed, but I was able to make it back by using my internal oil tank cap to seal the exposed fuel tank. Water removal plan at the bottom if anyone can give some feedback.

So I recently acquired a ‘97 Kawa STX 1100. It’s in excellent condition (both external and internal), and has been running great.

Anyway, I wanted to take it out yesterday as the afternoon weather was perfect on Lake Michigan. It’s about a 50 minute ride from my local boat launch to my favorite state park beach on the big lake (most of that time is spent in a no-wake zone through Grand Haven). So I finally get out onto the big lake and rip it down the coast, once I got to the beach I went to beach it… when — horrified— I noticed the fuel cap was missing, and the fuel inlet (on the bow) was completely open to taking in water. I couldn’t tell previously because the left mirror perfectly blocks the fuel cap from the riding position.

I was getting splashed by surf so I immediately pulled it back behind the break zone, fired it up and found a calmer section of beach & power beached it. In the process I witnessed some water pass over the fuel port, not sure how much got in but given that most of my ride was spent plowing in no-wake, I’m certain that a fair amount of water entered the tank (maybe 1/2-1 gallon max in a 15 gal tank that I had topped off prior to launching).

Once it was safely beached away from surf/spray, I removed the (internal) oil cap and put that on the fuel cap, took a moment to mourn my evening (the weather was absolutely gorgeous) & called a mechanic friend to verify that the oil pump did not need a sealed/pressurized tank to operate. I figured that since the fuel tank was (mostly) full, the water would settle at the bottom & since the primary fuel system pulls from the middle of the tank, I’d be able to get home without sputtering out — worst case I had a marine radio w/ DCS+GPS if I got stranded on the big lake.

Thankfully I was right, and made it back without issue. The root cause was user error — upon arriving to the boat launch, I pulled aside to do my pre-launch checklist: ventilate engine compartment, open fuel cap to release any pressure, get it running prior to launching etc. When I opened the fuel cap, I put it back on but got distracted before fully tightening & forgot to go back and tighten. So the engine vibration worked the threads loose & it probably flew off during my initial rip from the boat launch to the GH no-wake area, and I just didn’t notice.

Anyway, once it was back in my garage I put the oil cap back on the oil tank to prevent moisture from getting in (as that would be a much bigger problem than water in the fuel) and covered the fuel inlet with some plastic wrap.

Water removal plan: I have a siphon (and awaiting a replacement fuel cap), my plan is to put the ski on the slope of my driveway, let it settle, remove the refueling hose to give me more direct access to the tank. Then feed the siphon to the lowest area of the tank and start siphoning until I see the fuel/water boundary in the siphon tube (and siphon a bit more past that point). Then add some HEET (isoproyl version), top off the tank with 93 octane to account for the ethanol being removed alongside the water, and then take it out and burn through the main tank. Take it home and siphon off the remaining 1.8gal and dispose of that, before running through another full tank.

I would just siphon everything out but there’s likely 8-10 gal in the tank and I don’t have a gas can big enough to store that (only a 5 gal). My understanding is that a small amount of water in the fuel tank shouldn’t harm the engine as long as it doesn’t sit like that for long enough to rust the cylinders, degrade fuel lines/carb diaphragms etc. And the HEET should emulsify remaining water so that it just gets burnt off alongside the fuel/oil as it’s running. Seems like the main risk is that the engine sputters out on my initial run, but I have friends with boats/skis to rescue me and worst case can call for help over channel 16.

Definitely learned my lesson about complacency, I was feeling rushed due to a busy boat launch and ultimately that’s what lead to this headache. Could have been a lot worse though, as it stands I got off lightly with only a ruined evening. I think my water removal plan is solid but if anybody wants to chime in with feedback or critiques I’m happy to hear them.