SoulWinner
Commander
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2002
- Messages
- 2,423
Here's mine. I live near Pensacola Florida. If you live here there are several Mercury Authorized Dealers/Service Centers to choose from. Doc's Marine and MarineMax Killinger are two worth avoiding.
All I wanted was a battery. My battery won't hold a charge, but hey, it is actually in it's last month of warranty for a free replacement! Great news eh? Sure!!!....... if I could get it replaced. Since I bought the boat in South Florida I went to the Mercury web site to find local dealer. I did this once before to find a place to change the oil. At that time I called Doc's Marine and was quoted $250. over the phone for the oil change. After getting a few questions answered on this forum I changed the oil myself, and the lower unit gear oil for under $50. I think I can get filters from Napa too, which is great because I like the Napa Gold filters.
So back to the battery. This is the first time I have ever had trouble with a battery during it's replacement period. So I go to the web site and look up local dealers. I called them all and none carry the Mercury brand battery. It is an Exide that is re-labeled for Mercury. So I call Mercury and speak to several people and finally a guy tells that any Mercury dealer can replace my battery with a suitable battery and that Mercury will settle with the dealer. So I call back to MarineMax Killinger and Howard (in parts) says he has to call Mercury to be sure. Fine, so he calls me back and says that I have to bring my dead battery in and he will order a replacement from Mercury, and the new battery will be delivered in 4-6 weeks, and it's coming from Fon Du Lac, WI! Now at this time I realize that Howard is a lieing tool, and I let him know that I know that the battery was not manufactured by Mercury and was not shipped from WI. He sticks to his BS so I call back to Merc. I explain my situation and get transferred around until I speak to Darlene in Parts. Now here is someone who is conscientious about her job and tries to do it well. So far she is the only person I spoke with at Merc who gave me that impression. She informs me that these are just Exide batteries and any dealer can exchange the battery for any Exide battery and it's no big deal. Refreshing because Howard at Marinemax Killinger acts like batteries are more valuable and harder to come by than oil changes from Doc's Marine! So Darlene advised me to call Eric Riley, one of the managers in the Mercury Marine Parts Dept. At first I thought Eric was going to be helpful, but he ended up with an attitude of "hey, what's the big deal, just bring the battery to MarineMax let them replace it." and never seemed to understand that Howard the Parts Nazi treats replacing a battery like taking the Lords name in vane.
So here I am. A dead battery that is still in warranty and nowhere to take it. That is brilliant on Mercury's behalf, to figure out how to sell warrantied items that their dealers won't honor. To add perspective to this, I have owned boats for over a decade. This boat is the fifth one I have owned, but it is the first one with a Mercury outboard. The other four all had Johnson's only one of them was purchased new, and over the years I have had work done on them or I did work on them and bought parts from Wills Marine in Pensacola, the local OMC dealer/service center. It is noteworthy that I do not have a single bad thing to say about Wills Marine, or the OMC/Bombardier service network. I do not have one single good thing to say about Mercury Marine Inc. nothing but total disgust for Doc's Marine and Marinemax Killinger. The only good thing I can say about this outboard is that it was built by Yamaha.
There are several other Merc service centers/dealers around NW FL. Maybe in the future I will have better customer service from them, but I can't recommend Docs or Marinemax. Maybe by posting this I can save someone else the trouble of trying to deal with these people. I just hope I never have to take this motor to a service center to have it worked on. If Merc can't replace a freaking battery, how will they ever fix the engine if it breaks???
All I wanted was a battery. My battery won't hold a charge, but hey, it is actually in it's last month of warranty for a free replacement! Great news eh? Sure!!!....... if I could get it replaced. Since I bought the boat in South Florida I went to the Mercury web site to find local dealer. I did this once before to find a place to change the oil. At that time I called Doc's Marine and was quoted $250. over the phone for the oil change. After getting a few questions answered on this forum I changed the oil myself, and the lower unit gear oil for under $50. I think I can get filters from Napa too, which is great because I like the Napa Gold filters.
So back to the battery. This is the first time I have ever had trouble with a battery during it's replacement period. So I go to the web site and look up local dealers. I called them all and none carry the Mercury brand battery. It is an Exide that is re-labeled for Mercury. So I call Mercury and speak to several people and finally a guy tells that any Mercury dealer can replace my battery with a suitable battery and that Mercury will settle with the dealer. So I call back to MarineMax Killinger and Howard (in parts) says he has to call Mercury to be sure. Fine, so he calls me back and says that I have to bring my dead battery in and he will order a replacement from Mercury, and the new battery will be delivered in 4-6 weeks, and it's coming from Fon Du Lac, WI! Now at this time I realize that Howard is a lieing tool, and I let him know that I know that the battery was not manufactured by Mercury and was not shipped from WI. He sticks to his BS so I call back to Merc. I explain my situation and get transferred around until I speak to Darlene in Parts. Now here is someone who is conscientious about her job and tries to do it well. So far she is the only person I spoke with at Merc who gave me that impression. She informs me that these are just Exide batteries and any dealer can exchange the battery for any Exide battery and it's no big deal. Refreshing because Howard at Marinemax Killinger acts like batteries are more valuable and harder to come by than oil changes from Doc's Marine! So Darlene advised me to call Eric Riley, one of the managers in the Mercury Marine Parts Dept. At first I thought Eric was going to be helpful, but he ended up with an attitude of "hey, what's the big deal, just bring the battery to MarineMax let them replace it." and never seemed to understand that Howard the Parts Nazi treats replacing a battery like taking the Lords name in vane.
So here I am. A dead battery that is still in warranty and nowhere to take it. That is brilliant on Mercury's behalf, to figure out how to sell warrantied items that their dealers won't honor. To add perspective to this, I have owned boats for over a decade. This boat is the fifth one I have owned, but it is the first one with a Mercury outboard. The other four all had Johnson's only one of them was purchased new, and over the years I have had work done on them or I did work on them and bought parts from Wills Marine in Pensacola, the local OMC dealer/service center. It is noteworthy that I do not have a single bad thing to say about Wills Marine, or the OMC/Bombardier service network. I do not have one single good thing to say about Mercury Marine Inc. nothing but total disgust for Doc's Marine and Marinemax Killinger. The only good thing I can say about this outboard is that it was built by Yamaha.
There are several other Merc service centers/dealers around NW FL. Maybe in the future I will have better customer service from them, but I can't recommend Docs or Marinemax. Maybe by posting this I can save someone else the trouble of trying to deal with these people. I just hope I never have to take this motor to a service center to have it worked on. If Merc can't replace a freaking battery, how will they ever fix the engine if it breaks???
