Another tiller handle breaks and bites the dust on a Mud Buddy Sport V 44. Guess he didn't read the reviews or get kit the handle "strap kit."

Thankfully this fella and his wife are alive to talk about it.

I bought a Sport V from Freeway Motor Sports a couple months ago and other than having it on local lakes didn't really get to run it on my Gator traxs 18' boat. I took it Salmon fishing on the big Manistee river here in Northern Michigan and when I was finished that Day noticed it had a leak in the middle of the casting on the lower unit. No problem according to Jim at Freeway motor sports and I was happy with that...OK going to get it fixed. Took it out Saturday for my wife's first outing and had a good day. She wanted to go back Sunday and on our way up the river going about 25 MPH up the river the handle broke right off in my hand! the boat made a hard port turn and slammed into the bank knocking my wife out of her chair and my poor dog tossed out of the boat and me on my A$%. I am glad the 200 canoe boaters were not there from the day before or the motor could have killed somebody!

Where y'at TGunn? Schauv01? Ducaholic? Deadbird8? Where y'all at?

I think if they would cast it solid it might not break

Poor guy. That's an expensive piece of shit.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC

The hell with cast. I don't see how cast stuff like tiller handles and lower units will ever last in the conditions that most people put a mud motor through

Who has a FB to post this at MB Outdoors?

Bahahaha what a fukin piece of shit! Only a matter of time before somebody gets really hurt because of these poorly engineered hunks of garbage.

I tried posting it on their wall, I think they have to allow the post thoigh

Still don't know why they would cast that section so thin.

Done. Sucks, Cause that really is a safety issue.

It's posted on the MB forum for now.

That's not near enough material in that area for the force exerted on those handles! Hell I cracked the handle smoothe off my godevil and it was steel! Seems if you want u can push down hard on that handle and crack it off!!!

I see it on my wall, idk if its on theirs or not

it's on their FB now

And it's gone!

Wait I found it!!!

its still there

He posted it again

I found where it was moved. Two post of it.

The 10 year warranty on the castings is what is gonna do them in.

Don't know the folks but just glad no one was hurt. That really is a safety issue!

It's been viewed over 50+ times with no comments.

It looked like that motor was one that had already had the "reinforcement" plate welded to the top. All they are doing is transferring the stresses to the next weakest point.

WOW....is all I can think. MB is going to get somebody SERIOUSLY hurt.

I can see a major lawsuit coming down the road. Its only a matter of time till someone get hurt or killed in one of these things.

High porosity castings. Very cheaply cast.

Has anybody at mb addressed this? I mean other than sending out "reinforcement" crap. It's a lawsuit waiting to happen, but if someone is seriously injured or killed, mb is done. Are they really going to take that chance and not recall them?

Whoever came up with the idea of "let's weld a piece of flat bar to this piece of thin casting to reinforce it" was a total idiot!

Looking really close at the pix, you can see that the weld cracked first. It has the most wear/rub marks against the fracture surface. With so few hours on the motor, he probably got the motor with a cracked weld. Over the seven hour period of running/vibration, the fracture surfaces were "rubbed" smoother.
MB Tiller_01.jpg
MB Tiller_02.jpg

Once the weld failed, the inevitable happened...the casting failed...which is why they put the reinforcement on there to begin with! It looks like that failure happened rather quickly. You can see the chevron marks indicating the failure location. Once it gave, it was just instant (catastrophic) failure.

MB Tiller_04.jpg

Looks like a really poor casting, to boot. Looked like there may have been some blow holes/sand pockets/porosity in it, also. The little piece that the guy held in his hand had some rub marks on the paint. Maybe where the tiller arm pivoted against the frame? That would act as a point of contact that could have been "prying" the tiller away from the frame, causing the failure.....just theory.


I would seriously love to get my hands on those broken pieces. I could have it looked at under magnification and tell you exactly what happened. But, that's my first impression from what I could capture without magnification.

The rub marks.

MB Tiller_05.jpg

Gonna get somebody killed

After seeing this happen more and more, I cant believe somebody would lay down that kind of money on something like that.

Someone is going to fucking DIE...................I wounder if they will have a fucking recall then.................

That's not good. Hope he can get it fixed/replaced.