Why is MerCruiser's customer service so poor?

Jodijoe

My 2010 40' has the 496 Mags. My local marina said there was a recall because the inside of some parts were painted and flaking paint was getting into the engine. It wasn't officially a recall according to Merc, but Mercruiser paid for the parts while I was forced to pay $2K for the labor to replace all 16 fuel injectors and fuel rails. Why? MerCruiser couldn't care less. Never MerCrusier again!

Liberty44140

At $100 per hour that is 20 hours to replace fuel rails and injectors. This has been discussed here before and I don’t believe that should be a 2-3 day job. Heck it took one mechanic less time to completely replace both gimbal rings on my 310 from drive removal to re mount including bellows, alignment, exhaust, etc. 

Dream_Inn

Well, at least they covered the parts.  My first time around (yes, I did this twice), I got the paint in there and got stuck out in the bay...AND...had to pay it for it all myself.  The next time, Merc Rep was awesome.  I had another issue that took a tremendous amount of effort, time, and parts.  Most of it was gratis.  I'm talking months of labor, who knows how much it would've cost (I estimated $40-50k!).  There are some really good Merc Reps out there and it not only depends upon them, but how well your local mechanic works with them.  $2k is a little high for the labor, but you still got off very cheap compared to my cost the first time around.  Just take a look at how much you saved in parts (I'll give you a hint, you paid about half the price of just what the parts cost).

And I sure hope you don't expect better from Volvo (there are way more stories on this forum worse from them).

Ian

A friend just had his Bayliner done, same issue and it was $5k per engine in parts - he paid $900 labor. I agree it’s @Dream_Inn in that it matter who is dealing with whom between shop and Merc.

Jodijoe

But my engines had no problems before the suggested replacement. They told me the repairs would be much more expensive once they were damaged. C'mon man, I could get 2 brand new engines for $50K or rebuilt for $14K. And there's no way it took 20 hours. Merc could have declared an official recall which would have restricted the shops' labor charges to something reasonable for customers, but then they would have had to recall everyone and lose more money, even those not having problems. They decided not to do the right thing and screw their customers to improve the bottom line. Like boating isn't expensive enough.

I had the first iteration of the Volvo 6.2 L aluminum block engine in my custom order Yukon Denali XL around '07 or so. A coil spring blew at 18K miles. They gave me a whole new engine at no charge. We need more choices.

Ethanol gas has been in use for quite a while. How did MerCruiser manage to win a  design award when a basic part is not compatible with gas?

LaRea

Wait, what?!?  The yard performed this expensive, invasive repair when the boat did not have any symptoms?  I'm throwing the BS flag.  Although this problem has been widely reported, it is rare.  I'd never agree to preemptive surgery for something like this.  

You should have an issue with the yard, not Mercruiser.  

Liberty44140

My thoughts exactly, this is a service rep problem and not merc. Honestly I’m shocked the yard got merc to pay for anything when you were having no issues. 

Ian

Sounds like they saw $$$$$ coming in labor under the guise of a factory recall.

LaRea

@Jodijoe - was your 2010 boat even at risk?  Merc redesigned the fuel cooler in 2009.  

By the way, the flaking paint does not cause a safety issue, so I don't think it falls under the USCG regs for safety recalls.  It causes reduced performance, but the USCG only *requires* recalls for problems that directly affect safety (leaking fuel, loss of steering, etc.).  So a recall would have to be voluntary by Merc, and I don't think the problem has affected enough customers to justify it.  

Dream_Inn

You may be surprised how many people have had to do this.  I never knew about it until I had it happen (twice!  yes, the first replacement was with the same stupid parts in 2012 - so not sure where the 2009 number comes in - Redesign initially may have only been for the corrosion issue).  After talking with others, "oh yeah, I had the paint issue too!" or "oh the cooling portion corroded".  Maybe it's just area specific, but I've seen my share.  

I do agree that you shouldn't have to do it without symptoms.  & it definitely only should've been the fuel coolers, not injectors unless you had issues.  But, I sure wish someone had asked me to do it before I had all the problems that I did (& there were lots of them).  

As far as affecting customers, it will continue to affect more as time goes by.  It is not the question of "if" it will happen, but "when" it will.  Only reason it won't is if you are using non-ethanol gas.  The people that I've seen it happen to early on is those that have used their boats more than average.  Not sure if that has anything to do with it.

zaverin1

Yukon with volvo engine lmao?

Ian

By Bayliner buddy's boat is a 2006 and he has the issue being addressed now. Didn't know about it until he inquired about some other issue around the cooler/fuel pumps and they went looking.

zaverin1

Pretty much all marine gas engines are GM based 

Jodijoe

LaRea said:

Wait, what?!?  The yard performed this expensive, invasive repair when the boat did not have any symptoms?  I'm throwing the BS flag.  Although this problem has been widely reported, it is rare.  I'd never agree to preemptive surgery for something like this.  

You should have an issue with the yard, not Mercruiser.  

I bought the boat used a year ago. I didn't really want to approve the yard's recommendation, but then he said how expensive the repairs would be if the paint chips ruined the engines. Boat is 2010 but engines were manufactured in '08 during recession. E85 was approved in '07. I didn't know what to do so I followed the shop's advice. The part that irritates me is that if this had been a real recall, the yard would have been forced to follow Merc's billable hours for the job, which would have been about half of what I paid to make the change. Hoping I did the right thing.

Jodijoe

Liberty44140 said:

My thoughts exactly, this is a service rep problem and not merc. Honestly I’m shocked the yard got merc to pay for anything when you were having no issues. 

But Merc knew the fuel rails and injectors shouldn't have been painted and made the change for newer models.

Jodijoe

icoultha said:

Sounds like they saw $$$$$ coming in labor under the guise of a factory recall.

It sounds like a gray area from reading these posts. Not sure if I did the right thing. The previous owner gently used it as a floating condo so it had low hours. The yard knows we're a larger group so maybe they were concerned about the performance of getting up on plane?

Jodijoe

Dream_Inn said:

You may be surprised how many people have had to do this.  I never knew about it until I had it happen (twice!  yes, the first replacement was with the same stupid parts in 2012 - so not sure where the 2009 number comes in - Redesign initially may have only been for the corrosion issue).  After talking with others, "oh yeah, I had the paint issue too!" or "oh the cooling portion corroded".  Maybe it's just area specific, but I've seen my share.  

I do agree that you shouldn't have to do it without symptoms.  & it definitely only should've been the fuel coolers, not injectors unless you had issues.  But, I sure wish someone had asked me to do it before I had all the problems that I did (& there were lots of them).  

As far as affecting customers, it will continue to affect more as time goes by.  It is not the question of "if" it will happen, but "when" it will.  Only reason it won't is if you are using non-ethanol gas.  The people that I've seen it happen to early on is those that have used their boats more than average.  Not sure if that has anything to do with it.

Boat is 2010 but engines were manufactured in '08 during recession. The previous owner gently used it as a floating condo so it had low hours. We only have ethanol free gas nearby but i don't know if the previous owner was bringing outside gas using a fuel caddy. It sounds like it was the right decision, just more expensive than it should have been.

Jodijoe

zaverin1 said:

Yukon with volvo engine lmao?

Ok, it was obviously manufactured by GM, but I was told the design was based on Volvo's aluminum block engine.

Ian

Jodijoe said:

icoultha said:

Sounds like they saw $$$$$ coming in labor under the guise of a factory recall.

“The previous owner gently used it...... “

I’d question that based upon your rocker issue and the suggestions by the guys smarter than me bout engines that it had oil/cooling issues.

Jodijoe

icoultha said:

Jodijoe said:

icoultha said:

Sounds like they saw $$$$$ coming in labor under the guise of a factory recall.

“The previous owner gently used it...... “

I’d question that based upon your rocker issue and the suggestions by the guys smarter than me bout engines that it had oil/cooling issues.

What's your differential diagnosis by the previous owners? Low oil? Lack of oil changes? WOT for too long? Is it possible that they ran the engines while out of water after the sea trial for spite? 

Or is it more likely to be related to improper repair/preparation after the fuel rails and injectors were replaced during the recall repair?