Regal 3860/4060 Questions

In 2020, we purchased a 2007 Regal 4460 with Mer 8.1l Vdrives.  Gas.   We saw a lot of the 4060’s, 4460’s  with Pods or diesel and looked at a few.  Our gas had 220 hours on engines and Mercury pulled the motor history.  Gas equipped boat was cheaper, had less hours, easy to find mechanics/parts.  I avoided the pods as the complexity and cost didn’t seem worth it.   We’ve been very happy with our Regal as equipped and nothing would prevent us from buying the same boat again.  

KTMW,

I agree with Hawker63 assessment, but I'm coming from a different place. I had a 4460 with Volvo D6 Diesels and Pods and at the time when I picked up the boat, I was coming from a 32 foot boat with Volvo Gas and OutDrives which was a bitch to handle in the wind with that setup. The drives were too close to effectively control the boat when there anything more than a 10 mph wind. I had that boat for 3 summers and got better with it docking over time, but it was never good in the wind. We traded that boat on the 4460 with D6s and PODs due to my experience with the 32 footer. At that time though Diesel was much cheaper than Gas, and a diesel boat will be more efficient than gas, so that was another reason to go with the Diesel. The 4460 was a breeze to handle around the dock unless the wind was over 30 mph and even then it was controllable. In the 7 years we owned the 4460 I only bumped pilings probably less than 4 times. And two of those times it was pretty darn windy. The boat was a dream to handle around the docks.

With that said, the Pods are complicated and require a bit of maintenance. I had to replace a POD controller (Computer Brain on the top of the Pod) on one of the pods in the ownership timeframe and that was $4k. Oil changes were expensive as they hold a lot of Oil in addition to what the engines hold so that was another cost annually that made my boat more expense that most inboards to maintain. The Diesels were also a bit of an issue but I bought the boat with 1000 hours and put about 600 on it in that timeframe so I was expecting some cost but having to put a new long block in wasn't expected. That was very expensive as well. Gas real;acement engines are much cheaper. One thing I will say for the Pods and the Diesels was that that boat burned about 1/2 the diesel that my buddy's 42 SeaRay with Cummins Diesels and V-Drives did. WE would always travel together and he was always having to stop for Diesel when we just kept going. I put that to the duo props on the PODs and to be honest handling was one but the Duo props also had me when we got the 4460 due to the fact that the 32 foot boat had duo props and was very efficient as well and also fast.

With all this said, my recommendation would be if you can get a boat with low hours either, GAS or Diesel, will do but I will say that Diesel will normally last longer than a Gas engine hours wise. Also Diesel will normally be a bit more frugal with fuel but with today's price of Diesel that may be eaten up by the cost different between Gas and diesel which wasn't the case when I had the 4460 back in the day.

With that said, I have a 33 footer with GAS outboards now and a Joystick. Thank gosh I have the joystick since using the throttles alone without the joystick is a challenge because once again the engines are a bit to close together to control the boat without the joystick adjusting them.

I can also say while I swore by the PODs for handling. My buddy's SeaRay was just as easy to handle with the Cummins and the big 4 blade props once you had time time behind the wheel to practice and become comfortable with it. I would say a seasoned captain could probably handle both a pod boat and an inboard boat with equal skill. it's just easier to become skilled with a POD boat with a joystick. It takes a bit of practice to become good with an inboard.

So get what to you will be the best deal. If they both have low hours and you can get diesel as easy as you can get gas on the water where you boat, I'd lean probably to the diesel boat unless you really like the Gas one and want that more.

Good luck with search. We found ours on boat trader… brokers are typically commission based so they will work to drive up price. We made a conditional offer based on survey, sea trials. Survey found issues which allowed us to negotiate a final offer below our conditional price. That said, plan on finding more stuff then survey identified or else stuff you decide to swap/change as every boat is a project.