2008 Rinker 320 Just Looking

[Shaun]

I am looking into a 2008 Rinker 320. The boat has been in storage for at least a year as the owners have moved oversea's. It is equipped with Volvo 5.7 Gi Dp with 125 hrs. It does not have the dreaded XDP's. I do not know the hours on the generator.
The boat is loaded with almost every option. The dealer who is selling the boat is an excellent dealer and has been selling Rinkers for decades. He will ensure it is properly taken out of storage.
Just want to know the good , the bad and the ugly of a 320? What kind of WOT and cruising speed would I be looking at.
Any thoughts would be appreciatted

[fmrosell]

To seriously look at this kind of boat you really have to do a minimum of two things:

1. hire a surveyor
2. take it out on a sea trial

Otherwise, talk is very cheap.

[Shaun]

fmrosell
              I have bought many boughts in the past. I am not looking for advice to buy a used boat. I am looking for the information I requested specifically on a Rinker 320. That is all
Thanks for your input.

[Rinker342]

The 320 is a great boats.  I had a 310 a few years ago and have many friends that have 310s, 312s and 320s, all of which are essentially the same hull.  As I'm sure you know, the cabin and cockpit are both very roomy.  The boat handles very well in all kinds of sea conditions.  My experience is with boats having 5.0 engines with Bravo III drives.  Those will cruise nicely at 26 to 32 mph with 28 - 30 being optimum.  WOT for the 5.0s is about 40 - 42 mph.  I have to guess the cuising speed and WOT for a boat with 5.7s might be a bit faster, but not by a lot.  There a quite a few 310, 312, 320 owners on the site that might be able to give you a bit more hands-on info.  Best of luck with your decision. 

[sailor]

there is a guy living  in china with a 34 -06 located in ky.
liitle use and an array of extras. he uses a cg capt to operate
and a full marine service company just to insure he can fly
home and boat. i guess abou 100 hours on volv's and much less
on generator. he has a short add in the web page. lake only
and no XP .

[GJH442]

I know which boat and what dealer you are dealing with. Looks like a great boat and they are a fantastic dealer. I looked at a new 2009 320. Great boat, excellent layout. Kind of wish I would have purchased it.  I would assume the boat is on consignment......give them a low offer, you have nothing to lose.

[Dream 'Inn]

I love our 310, which is basically the same as the 320 with just a little different cabin layout.  Ours has the 5.0 with BIII drives.  It tops over 40 mph with a good cruising speed just over 30 with about 3700rpm.  At cruising, it burns about 22gph.  Absolutely love the boat!  I am in what was a Rinker dealer marina (same as Rinker342/Doug), lots of 320s there and they seem to be holding up well. I think the placement of seacocks and equipment is very good.  I have owned the boat since 2006 and have done all of the maintenance on the boat. Everything is pretty easy to work on except the hot water heater and a little more difficult on generator (back spark plug is a bear and impellar is a little tough - although on the 320s the generator is in the middle making this task easier).  What to look for, well one is leaks, especially around rub rails.  Make sure there are no stains down in the interior that could show this happening.  Look in the hidden spaces to make sure things are dry.  Make sure the seacocks were all exercised.  Also, the arches used to have leak problems, then causing cracks in the bottom when the water froze in the winter.  Also the paint on the arches always had issues bubbling and cracking.

The outdrives, well it seems like you know the volvo issues.  Good luck and let us know how it goes.

[frodo13056]

I have an 08 320 that I purchased new and so far, it's been a pretty great boat. Had a handful of issues when new but once I either fixed stuff myself or the dealer finally fixed stuff - it's been smooth boating since.
I have the Merc 5.0 with BIII drives and also have the Lowrance fuel monitoring system and can tell you that with the 320, just figure on getting about 1 MPG when cruising. The "sweet spot" for the 320 with the Merc setup is 32 MPH where you'll get 1.12 MPG - top end on mine (with lots of extra gear, near full fuel, 2 people, bottom paint) is about 40 MPH and you probably don't want to know the fuel burn at that speed 
Overall, the 320 is plenty big for the two of us and an occasional couple for overnighters. There are a handful of things you can do to make the boat better to suit your particular style.
For instance, we got rid of the front berth foam (put it in storage) and we use an Aero air mattress. The air mattress works great and it's so much easier to access the storage areas under the front berth with the air mattress. I also took out the aft berth cushions (we affectionately call the aft berth the "cave") to save wear and tear on them since the cave is used mostly for storing stuff. When the occasional overnighter couple stay, we have a second Aero mattress that we use. Of course there are a ton of other things that I've done to better customize our 320 for what we like to do.
Good luck - if the boat is sound, I'm sure you'd be happy with it - until two-foot-itis hits 

[Shaun]

Thank you everyone for your valuable information. Frodo you hit right on what I was thinking after reading past posts. We are still in the thinking stage, I will let you all know if we decide to try it. One downfall for this year is we have planned to be on the Trent canal in July and right now that is easily possible because we have a trailer for our 280 to get it down there.
We will see.
Thanks
Shaun

[Tom]

Shaun...you will love the 320. We went from a 280 to a 320 also, and it was like night and day. I have the Volvo 5.7 Gi in mine and they run great. The best top end I got out of them was right at 40 MPH. I did that once to find out for myself. Most of the time I cruise right around 25-28 MPH. I've had Sea Ray 320 owners on the boat before and they mentioned and were impressed with how much better my Rinker ran and planed out than their SR. It's a 2005 with all options. BTW....it's for sale if you or anybody else wants the info I can give you a boat trader link for it. It's my third Rinker and I have loved them all, but my wife says we are getting a larger aft cabin boat because of the grandkids. Good luck and enjoy. Oh, one other thing. Someone mentioned the mattress in the front berth. We still use the foam, but we added a 4" memory foam mattress to it and it has made a lot of difference in our sleeping comfort. We bought the king size at Wal-Mart or similar type store and cut it to fit. The berth is obviously longer, so we had to cut and fit 3 pieces. You can glue them but we simply put the new pieces under the existing foam mattress. It worked great for us.

[Shaun]

Well we took the plunge. Financing for the people buying our boat has been approved and we will be the owners of a 2008 Rinker 320. Same boat as above that we have been looking at. Just have to wait for it to be removed from storage and serviced for us. We have purchased a new triple axle 18,000 lb capacity aluminum trailer that was at the dealer and was sent too long for the new 310 it was ordered for. Can,t wait !
 

[royela]

Hey Shaun,

Congrats on your new ride!! Did you buy from the local dealer?

royela

[Shaun]

Roy, we bought it from Paul at Maple City in Chatham. We have been keeping an eye on this since last fall. The owner has always had Maple City service and store it. It was not ran in 2011 and was left in their storage. The boat is immaculate and we wanted more room and more engine and when we looked at it we knew it was for us. We loved our 280 but wanted to move up.

[gerrpicc53]

Shaun,

We looked at that boat 2 weeks ago. Nice boat and we really liked it but it was just a little beyond our budget. Congrats and enjoy!

Gerry

[Shaun]

Gerry , where are you from? Did you find a boat?