Thread: Need Recommendation For A Good Mercury Mechanic

Does anyone know of a dependable and honest Mercury dealer? My buddy has an Optimax that is acting up and it needs to go into a shop. Somewhere in the Tulsa to Eufaula area be nice. I've used Larry's in Coweta, but never for any motor work. I don't think he works on Mercury engines anyhow.

Okay, so I took the boat with the 115 Optimax into Performance Plus Marine in Muskogee Thurs at around 2 p.m. I'd talked to Mike on the phone and he was very polite. He actually suggested the motor might still be under warranty, but it wasn't. He told me he could have it fixed and out by later on this week.

Anyway, when I got there I met Randy, the Owner who is apparently Mike's dad. We talked about the motor and then went inside his Office to fill out the paper work. I specifically asked him not to do any work until they had called me with what the problem was and how much it would take to fix it. He assured me they never worked on an engine until receiving the Okay from the Customer. He even wrote it on the ticket to call before fixing with price to fix. We also talked about the cost should it be the impeller and he said about an hours worth of labor plus parts and he gave me a ball park figure on parts.

So Friday afternoon (Yeah, the next day) I was shocked when Mike called about 3 p.m. and told me the motor was fixed!! He said it took him about 6 hours to find out what was wrong with it and that they "had to get it wet to get it to go into guardian mode".

WTF!!

I couldn't imagine what all could have been wrong with it, especially something that took nearly a day to figure out! When I asked what was wrong he said that it was the impeller, a sensor and a couple seals. That's it. $50 dollars worth of parts and almost $500 worth of labor!

I couldn't go get the boat on Fri afternoon because I was in Tulsa. But I did find a few Mercury Marine forums and asked about why something like this would take 6 hours to diagnose and fix. I was pretty sure I knew the answer already, I just wanted some Mercury Marine gear heads (the kind with credentials) to answer it for me. Everyone said it should not take 6 hours to diagnose an impeller, sensor and seals. About half said it should only take an hour and the other half said 2 hours max and anything over and you're be paying for the mechanics education....

So today when I went to pick it up, I asked Randy why it took so long to diagnose the problem, especially after we'd talked about how long it would take previously when I had brought it in. I also asked why I wasn't called. He didn't have a good answer for either question and honestly, he looked a little surprised at the total when Mike handed him the ticket. He then changed the subject and said I was missing a plastic cover over my flywheel, which I already knew about.

He kept saying I had a "few things they had to track down" on the motor. I would have thought that's what a computer diagnostic machine would do, track down a bad impeller, sensor and seals so a Tech wouldn't have to spend 5 to 6 hours trying to figure out what was wrong. I'm still not sure why they "had to get it wet" to make it go into guardian mode since they already knew it did that. And again, wouldn't your computer tell you that?

So anyway, as you can guess, I'm not at all please with their service and will not be taking any boat of mine back to them. I could give you my opinion of what happened, but I believe most of you already know what happened. I think them being able to work on my boat in less than 24 hours compared to other shops in the area that are backed up a week to two weeks out this time of year also speaks volumes.