Not Such A Techy Question

[rickkinne59]

I have 1997 Sea Pro 180CC with 2001 Suzuki DF90 4 stroke. I love my boat!  What do you guys use to clean your boat?  Does anyone use or has anyone tried Salts Gone? I am seeing a lot of advertisements but don't want to waste money. Thanks in advance...

[Juan]

Welcome to the forum. You'll probably get a lot of different answers on this one.. I use boat soap or Dawn dish detergent when my boat needs a light cleaning and Tide laundry detergent or liquid bleach followed up with a liquid boat wax when it needs a serious scrubbing. (Bleach and Tide do a good job but can remove wax)
I don't believe in Salt Gone or Salt Away. Plain old hot water removes salt so flushing your engine until it's warm after use in saltwater should remove salt build up from the interior passages. As for the boat's exterior, I'll just wash it off with a garden hose or pressure washer and wax it at least once a year.

[rickkinne59]

Thank you very much. I won't waste my money then. Much appreciated...

[yessnoo]

I bought salt terminator a long time ago still have a little of the gallon left. First of all the stupid little hose mixer bowl thing that comes with it is garbage. It leaks so bad right out of the box you really can't use it. Maybe these products do help to some degree. It does seem to dissolve surface salt buildup better than water does on the hull.
I look at it this way. When you go down to the boat ramp sometimes you see boats with original motors older than I am still running. I highly doubt those folks did anything other than flush after every use.

On another note....A friend of mine bought a boat from his brother in Louisiana (2000ish key west with 2 stroke yamaha). The first time he took it out it gave overheat alarm after about an hour. I suspected water pump so we changed that. No joy same problem. At that point I suspected blockages in the cooling system. Friend who bought the boat asked his brother if he flushed the motor out after every use and his brother said "what do you mean flush it out"
He explained what it was and why you needed to do it and his brother said "Well I am not a mechanic how am I supposed to know this kind of stuff" lol. Anyways we tried filling up a 55 gallon barrel cut in half with vinegar and running the engine in it. It did make the bucket dirty and salt and what not did come out. But it wasn't enough to fix the problem. Ultimately he took it to a mechanic to get the engine torn apart and mechanically clean the passages. (I told him we could do it pretty easily but he wanted to take it somewhere) Also I would not recommend the barrel method because the water vinegar gets so hot after only a few minutes of running that the engine is going to overheat.

If you read the msds for salt away, saltoff, de-salt, salt terminator ect. They are either acidic cleaners or solvents mixed with surfactants. So in theory they probably do help but I doubt it is worth it.

Also I have a few friends that are exclusively saltwater guides and put 500-1000 hours per year on their motors. They are still running great when they upgrade and they aren't using saltaway or anything like that.