Pending purchase Sea Ray 450 Sundancer

[Bentwings]

Hi, I’m brand new here and I’ve been internet searching almost daily for 6 months for a big boat. Big to me however.

This boat is a change of life for me so it needs to be reliable. I can fix most light repairs and I’m well familiar with diesel trucks, my ‘99 Dodge has well over 400k miles and while not trouble free it’s cost per mile overall is the most economical of all of my cars and trucks I’ve ever had.

So my choice of boats is a 98-99 Sea Ray 450 Sundancer. There are two on the river near me for sale at nearly the same price. Both have 3126 Cats with about 1000-1200 hours. Both are in excellent condition...outwardly.

I’ve read countless stories of Cat problems. Many from the low hour time when these were new to only a few years old. However I haven’t seen much if any on boats about this size and today’s 18 year olds.

So finally the questions:

How are these motors holding up as they age into 1000 plus hours?

My vintage truck went through fuel injector pumps as though they were part of an oil change early on. However while I lost an injector pump the new one with the upgraded internals has 350k miles. I’m not sure what that translates to hours but it’s been very reliable. Cummins however.

I’d like to hear from users good and bad.

Thanks
Byron