2026 Starcraft Co ex 24 weekender — Waterford, MI 48329

A 2026 Starcraft EX 24 Q at Waterford, Michigan, advertised at $25,000 by Club Royale — a factory-fresh, current-year hull at used-boat money, which is either the best deal in this corner or an arithmetic exercise you should finish before driving to Michigan. Here is the arithmetic. Starcraft's own catalog prices a 24 Q from about $67,000 with a 150 on the transom; the EX line sits below that as the entry series, but no configuration of a new 24-foot pontoon with a real engine lands at twenty-five grand. So the first phone call is one question long: what, exactly, does this number include? If the answer is a base package with a modest outboard, it may still be excellent value. If the answer is a bare transom, you are shopping for a $12,000-plus engine and rigging bill, and the "used-boat money" framing just left the room.

Assume the answer comes back honest, because the boat behind the question is likeable. Starcraft has been building boats since 1903 — one of the oldest nameplates in American boating, now part of the Smoker Craft family group — and the EX 24 is its plain-spoken family porch: 24 ft 8 in overall, thirteen-person capacity, the Q floor plan's quad lounges aft, rated to 175 horsepower on two logs. Owner sentiment on the brand is unusually calm for the price class; the recurring note in owner reviews is people keeping Starcrafts for a decade without drama, backed by a limited lifetime structural warranty. The honest caveats: the EX 24 specifically has almost no independent test record — the pontoon press reviews the brand's dearer lines and leaves the entry series alone, so the reputation you are buying is the yard's, not this model's — and resale runs softer than the marquee names.

If the engine question sours you, the same money buys certainty in two directions. A thousand dollars less gets a 2023 Lowe with the motor already on it and three seasons of depreciation already paid:

Five thousand more gets 2023's most talked-about young brand, power bimini and all:

But if that phone call comes back with a real engine in the price, a new-boat warranty starting the day you sign makes this the strangest bargain on the power shelf. Ask the question, then survey this one first:

Sources: Starcraft Marine factory pricing and specifications; J.D. Power new-boat values; GoDownsize and Pontoon Forums owner commentary.