Logo
FULL SITE MENU

2005 225 hp Optimax Lower unit problem. Warranty??

C

carolinaflare

Contributing Member
2005 225hp Mercury Optimax approx 800 hours..
Ok , I am going to attempt to make a long story short:
A friend of mine has this motor on his 23 Dusky CC. About 3 months ago he took it to what was then a Mercury dealer in our area for a 100 hour service. Somehow when they were changing the water pump they cracked the lower unit housing. Of course they only told him this after he dropped by an surprised them one day, after several excuses from them has to why a 100 hr service was taking 2 weeks. They replaced the housing only we assume, However the dealer is now under new ownership and there are no records. We have the work order but it only says that there was a 100 hr service and that they “re-sealed lower unit” ?? Mercury has no record of the boat being in the dealer at this time. The engine is under warranty till March 2011.
This past weekend we ran the boat about 12 miles offshore and fished all day, trolling/live bait drift. On the way home we got on plane and headed in. All the sudden we heard a weird noise and the motor started shaking badly and we lost forward and reverse gear, totally. 12 miles of sea tow and bla bla bla..
We pulled the plug on the oil drain and oil was blackish/brown- not milky, with many chunks of metal. Shift cables are fine, we even disconnected shift cable and tried shifting into gears manually , just to make sure the cable adjustment was ok. Obviously the lower unit is trashed, and probably wasn’t assembled correctly when they removed the guts and swapped housings.
My question is in reference to the first paragraph, the new lower unit has a different serial # now than the original. Mercury says that if the lower unit was replaced then its not covered under warranty. How do they know which is which. Will they know if the inner guts are original or not.
What leg if any do we have to stand on?
 
Re: 225 Optimax Lower unit problem. Warranty??

There is no way to tell if the "guts" were simply re-installed in a new/used case. Your claim, if it could be proved, would be against the shop that did the work. I'm afraid Merc will wash their hands of this one (at least at a corporate level) especially since it sounds like he lacks documentation of what work was even performed on the motor.
 
Re: 225 Optimax Lower unit problem. Warranty??

What does your work order invoice say? Any part numbers for a new lower unit?
 
The only thing the documentation says is "100 hour service" and "re-seal lower unit" ..??? Propseal i assume?
The problem is that the shop went out of business and is now re-opened under new ownership and is still a merc dealer but has no other records what so ever.
I think the best thing to do is to take it to a completly different dealer and play dumb. Merc has no record of the boat being at any dealer for any type of repair.

Im not sure if the "current" lower unit has any markings at all on the outside
 
There will be service records after the change of ownership, no one throws that stuff out. The new owners just don't want the hassle, but when you buy a business, you buy both the profits and liabilities, so pursue them. If they are a Mercury dealer, the will have the records for sure.
Somewhere, there'll be a receipt for a new lower unit casting, gaskets etc. It may not have your name on it if they were trying to hide it, but it'll be there.

Regards, Andrew.
 
not true

my old shop sold out and shredded all the invoices, LOL

if it was a good shop they would have sent it to mercury
 
Back
Top