It's not just you Jim, sorry if I'm hijacking your post, I get a little frustrated too.
The world would be a better place if the manufacturers fostered a little more care and pride coupled with supervision of their employees. I own a Stacer, the boat style suits our use perfectly.
They could be so much better if they just paid more attention to detail, designed fittings and options smarter to make them more user friendly and fitted them with care for example....
It is necessary to physically unbolt the ski pole with a spanner each side of the transom to change from ski pole to bait board. Smart move would be a better deysign for the ski pole different design and positions of baitboard or even additional ski hooks. It's not unusual for a family to do both activities in one day or on one trip.
Aluminium swarf all over the place on delivery. And I haven't lifted all of the floor yet to see what is under there.
Fittings such as the rear and front ( bow rider boat) cushion being fixed with self drilling stainless screws. The design of the cushion helps trap moisture between the cushion and deck of the boat. The screw break the paint resulting in salt and moisture getting under and the paint bubbling probably before delivery is taken. Apparently Telwater uses a grease to help slow the corrosion but it didn't happen in our case. To do that it would be necessary to drill or screw through the cushion to the hull to mark the spots, remove the cushion apply the grease and refit.
Telwater to their credit have repaired this twice the second time we refitted the cushions ourselves using nylon fittings, pre priming and sikka to seal each one. I understand aluminium paint and salt water has its problems but I think there must be a better approach then self drilling screws breaking the paint on day 1.
The casting deck fell short of the door into the cockpit by around 6-8 inches. This left the cold air rushing through in winter, and things blowing around on the road. On our previous boat the kids sat in this spot if they were cold. We made a new one that fits the spot and carpeted it ourselves.
The live bait tank factory fitted does not fit from the back of the transom to the cushion. Stacer's solution is to pull the cushion forward so the backrest of the seat does not sit in it's correct position, doing so makes it not straight across the back and the hull no longer supports the backrest. The best solution we could come up with when reinstalling the fittings was to cut the front lip off the bait tank lid so it no longer fouled on the cushion. If I was in charge of that at Telwater I'd think one of three things should happen, redesign the cushion, use or fabricate a different live bait tank or make the transom deck slightly wider. They are to accepting of shortcuts IMHO.
When fitting the cushions there was a few misses with extra holes in the aluminium then was required. Between the front and back cushions they had used three different screws sizes where presumably they had stripped out the first hole, and a few were stripped unable to be tightened.
The stitching on the rear lounge back rest came apart at the seams on both sides ( replaced under warranty although I think the replacement will do the same within a couple of years). The stitching in the corners is under a lot of tension and is right on the edge of the material. Moving the cushion forward to clear the live bait tank wouldn't help either.
We also had the live bait pump fail spraying water under the floor this was replaced with little fuss and probably just one of those things.
Overall I love my boat, it is just disappointing we bought a new boat to eliminate fuss and had plenty of it. I think there is much that can be done that isn't in respect to quality control.
As a point of interest try and find a phone number or method of contacting Stacer (Telwater) directly. Look up their Facebook page and note you can't rate them or leave a review.