Buying Used Hobies?

I'm looking at picking up an Oasis in the next few months. There seems to be a steady stream of them posted on craigslist. I've only bought 1 Hobie my whole life and I got it from Jammer who obviously takes care of his equipment, especially the Mirage drives.

I am seeing a lot of Hobie's that are 2008 and older. Is buying a 6 or 7 year old Hobie like buying a car with a 150k on it? Have there been major improvements in the Mirage drive design in the past 10 years that makes one year better than another?

There are improvements made over the years. Here are the ones I know of:

Drives: V1 drives are the original. I am not knowledgeable about when the conversion to V2 came about, or about the all the differences, but there are differences. The big one is the V1 uses masts that are secured with a set screw, while the V2 uses threaded masts. The V1 also has rotary hold downs for the mounting, while the V2 has the "click-n-go" lever mountings. 2012 and newer V2 drives have metal reinforced drive drums that make wallowing out the pedal adjustment holes harder.

2011 and newer Oasises(?) have front and rear tillers. Older Oasises have rear only tillers. There also was a hull redesign in 2011. The old hull has a circular hatch on the front bulkhead, and the newer has a trapezoidal hatch on the front deck. The newer hull is a bit sleeker.

Seats: There are different seat mounting out there. I think the most common are expanding plugs - I'm not fond of it. 2012 saw the advent of keyed half-turn mounting which is more secure.

IMO, the improvements I know of are worthwhile, so the newer the better. The front tiller on the 2011 was absolutely necessary for us.

The Hobie website forum is a great source of info on past models.

Yup I just looked at 2008 Oasis for sale up north. Saw it lacked the front tiller. A deal breaker for me. I'll keep hunting. Thanks for the concise summary I was looking for.