The Tasmanian Devil was taken from service mid 2003 for an annual shutdown. It was scheduled to take about 4–5 weeks, which was a pretty big annual for Taz. It needed some exploratory inspections which involved pulling off the cars, arms, turret, top slew base and mid slew base.
After this had been done, the slew gear bearings were inspected and also had an independent opinion sought on them. The outcome was that they needed replacing (top and bottom) at $20,000 each.
The hydraulic drive motors and lifting cylinders needed overhaul as well, at an approximate cost of $50,000.
The decision came from management to halt all work on Taz. Management kept telling maintenance that they were considering either repairing Taz or replacing it with a new attraction. After some time, they instructed maintenance to remove the centre mast out of the pit and cover the pit over with timber boards and chipbark.
