Used Yamaha Jet Boats: AR190, AR210 & AR240 Prices

You want one boat that pulls the kids on a tube, beaches on a sandbar without anyone thinking about a spinning propeller, and doesn’t cost sterndrive money to keep running. Every search puts the same three boats in front of you — the AR190, the AR210, and the AR240 and its successor the AR250. The jet drive is both the reason you’re interested and the reason you’re uneasy: there’s no lower unit to service, but there’s also no lower unit you already know how to inspect. This guide covers what these boats actually sell for, where the wear really lives, and the four things to check before you hand over a deposit.

The short answer

In our active US listing data, used Yamaha sport boats sort cleanly by hull size, and the spread inside each size is wide enough that the specific boat matters more than the model name.

Family	Listings	Asking range	Median
19 ft (AR190, SX190, AR195, 195 series)	31	$18,500–$49,977	$30,000
21–22 ft (210, 212, 220, 222 series)	13	$26,900–$85,799	$43,070
24–25 ft (240, 242, 250, 252, 255 series)	29	$22,000–$109,000	$55,000

Those are asking prices on active private and dealer listings, not recorded sale prices, and each row rests on the listing count shown. For reference, a new 2026 AR190 is advertised at roughly $43,000 to $45,000 at dealers before tax, freight and prep — which tells you the 19-foot used market has real room underneath it but is not cheap.

The verdict: a well-kept 2018-or-newer AR190 in the high $20,000s is the strongest value in the lineup for a family that mostly tubes and cruises. The AR240 and 242 hulls are the ones worth stretching for if you carry eight or more people, and they’re also where a neglected pump costs you double, because there are two of them.

Three boats, three very different engine packages

The model number is a length. The engine underneath it is what you’re actually buying, and Yamaha has changed it more than once.

Model	Engines	Displacement	Dry weight	Fuel	Top speed
AR190 (2019 era)	1 × 1.8L HO	1,812 cc	2,147 lb	30 gal	43.2 mph @ 7,400 rpm
AR190 (2026)	1 × 1.9L HO, 200 hp	1,898 cc	2,434 lb	40 gal	43+ mph
AR210	2 × TR-1 HO	1,049 cc each	3,172 lb	—	43.8 mph @ 7,800 rpm
AR240 (2019 era)	2 × 1.8L HO	1,812 cc each	3,660 lb	50 gal	51.8 mph

Two changes deserve your attention as a used buyer. First, the 210-series switched from the old MR-1 engines to the TR-1 High Output — the MR-1 had to spin to 10,000 rpm to make its power, while the TR-1 makes more at 7,800. An older 210 on MR-1s is a different, busier, louder boat than a later one. Second, Yamaha replaced the 1.8L HO with a 1.9L HO rated at 200 hp in the 19-foot boats for the 2026 model year, so a 2026 AR190 is not mechanically the same boat as a 2024.

Note what the AR210 numbers really say: it’s a foot and a half longer and a thousand pounds heavier than the AR190, and it tops out at essentially the same speed. Twin small engines buy you hull, seating and redundancy — not thrust. If tow-sports pull is your priority, the 24-footers with twin 1.8L engines are the ones that deliver it, hitting 51.8 mph and planing in 2.3 seconds.

What the jet drive actually removes from your maintenance bill

This is the part most buyers get wrong in both directions. A jet boat is not maintenance-free, but it deletes an entire expensive subsystem.

Gone: the outdrive. No bellows, no gimbal bearing, no U-joints, no gear lube, no trim ram seals. On a sterndrive those items are a recurring $1,500 to $3,000 every few years, and the failure modes are genuinely nasty — see sterndrive problems and MerCruiser bellows replacement for what you’re skipping. There’s also nothing hanging below the hull, so you can run shallow, load on a trailer in less water, and beach the boat.

Also gone: the propeller behind the swim platform. The USCG’s 2024 Recreational Boating Statistics recorded 169 propeller strike incidents, 30 deaths and 158 injuries — up from 145 incidents in 2023. If your crew is small children swimming off the stern, that’s a real reason to choose this drivetrain, and it’s the single most honest argument in favor of a Yamaha over a comparable bowrider.

What replaces all of it is pump wear, and that’s where the money moves. Yamaha’s pumps use a stainless impeller running inside a wear ring at close tolerance. The gap between them is what makes thrust. As sand and gravel dull the impeller and open that gap, you lose holeshot and top speed long before anything breaks. Budget $400 to $900 installed per impeller and $150 to $400 in parts for a wear ring, usually done together. Neglect the pump long enough and the duct housing bearings go, which turns a routine job into a $1,200 to $2,500 rebuild per side. On an AR240 or 242, double every number. The general mechanics of this are covered in more depth in the jet boat buying guide.

The saltwater question, answered honestly

Yamaha jet pumps pair an aluminum housing with a stainless wear ring. Saltwater and heat corrode the joint between those two dissimilar metals, and the corrosion swells inward until it contacts the impeller — in bad cases far enough to stop the engine turning over. This is the specific reason a coastal Yamaha needs a documented flushing habit and a pump inspection roughly every two seasons.

It doesn’t make these boats a bad saltwater choice. It makes provenance decisive. A Great Lakes or freshwater-lake AR240 and a Gulf Coast AR240 with the same hours and the same price are not the same purchase. Our Yamaha sport boat sample skews heavily to Florida and Texas, so a large share of what you’ll find listed has salt in its history — ask, and read saltwater vs freshwater boats before you rationalize a bargain.

The warranty trap

Yamaha’s published warranty terms for 2019 and newer boats are shorter than most buyers assume:

• Engine and jet pump: one year from the date of original purchase, pleasure or commercial.
• Other components: three years for pleasure use.
• Hull and deck structural: for the duration of the first retail owner’s ownership — which means it ends when the boat changes hands.

For 2018 and older boats the hull and deck carried a flat five years in pleasure use. Either way, the practical result is the same: on any used Yamaha you look at, there is no meaningful factory coverage left, and the hull warranty does not follow the boat to you. Anyone telling you “it’s still under warranty” is describing a dealer or third-party contract, not Yamaha’s. Get that in writing.

Hours, records, and the number nobody publishes

Here is the awkward part: there is no structured engine-hour figure in our listing index — not on Yamaha sport boats and not on any other brand. Hours are simply not a field these listings carry, so there is no market benchmark to check a specific boat against. The number has to come from the seller, in writing, and then be verified at the boat.

Yamaha’s service rhythm is a 20-hour break-in service followed by service every 100 hours or annually, whichever comes first. That annual clause is the one that catches people. A 2016 AR190 with 180 hours has seen ten service intervals by the calendar, not two by the hour meter, and a seller who only did oil when the hours said so is behind. The general framework in boat engine hours: how many is too many applies here, with one adjustment: these engines cruise at 6,000 to 7,000 rpm, so a Yamaha hour is a harder hour than a sterndrive hour.

Resale: the honest picture

Yamaha jet boats do not hold value especially well as a percentage. Our brand depreciation analysis puts them near 34% retention from the 5-to-9-year-old band out to 20-plus years, against a 46% whole-market figure. Inside our current Yamaha sample the same shape shows up: 5-to-9-year-old boats average $42,141 (27 listings) and 10-to-14-year-old boats average $33,416 (11 listings) — roughly a 21% drop across five model years.

Read that as a buyer, not a seller. Weak percentage retention means the first owner already absorbed the loss and you’re getting more boat per dollar. It also means you should not pay a premium for a two-year-old Yamaha on the theory that it will hold its money. If you’re weighing one of these against a dedicated tow boat, the value math runs the other way entirely — see wake boat vs bowrider, because surf-capable boats stay scarce and stay expensive.

What to do before you send money

Do these five things in this order. Every one of them is cheap, and the first two catch most of the expensive surprises.

1. Look inside the pump yourself. Pull the seat or hatch, get a light down the intake, and run a fingernail across the impeller’s leading edges. Smooth and bright means a careful owner. Chipped, pitted or sandblasted-dull means the boat ate a lake bottom and the wear ring is gone with it. Then look at the joint between the aluminum housing and the stainless ring for any swelling or white powder.
2. Ask for the service records by interval, not by hours. You want an oil and filter entry for every calendar year, plus a 20-hour break-in service. Gaps are negotiating leverage.
3. Sea trial at wide-open throttle for at least ten minutes. A tired impeller and wear ring show up as a soft holeshot and a top speed several mph below the published figure — 43 mph on a 19-footer, roughly 52 on a twin-engine 24. Work the full sea trial checklist while you’re aboard.
4. Dock it in wind. Jet drives have no low-speed thrust in neutral and don’t back the way a prop boat does. Yamaha’s fix is the articulating keel, a small fin below the hull that gives directional bite at idle — it started on the 24-footers, spread across the line, and was redesigned thinner for the 2019 19-foot boats. An older hull without it wanders noticeably at dock speed. Find that out before you own it, not after.
5. Price the pump work into your offer. If the impeller is dull and there are no records, that’s $600 to $1,300 per side of near-term work. Put it in the number you say out loud.

Then check the price against the market rather than against the seller’s story. If you have a specific listing in front of you and can’t tell whether $34,900 on a 2019 AR190 is fair, paste the listing and get an instant verdict — Buy Score, red flags, and fair-price context before you make the call.