Re: Mercury Parts in Florida?
Well to give you guys an idea of how behind the times we are here... (Small town 100k-250k people, South Africa)<br /><br />We have 2 outboard dealers in my city. The one is the very expensive and flashy Merc agent, with a real scaly, backyard, rev-it-right looking mechanic (Noways I'd call him a technician). Their spare sales rep is a lady who doesn't have any technical background, doesn't know what a tacho, needle and seat, carb or piston is. Luckily her "online parts ordering software" is very similar to marinepower's online interface. So I havta get behind the counter, show her which parts I want, and give her the part numbers. Then the main Merc distributors in SA don't carry a lot of stock and most of time you have to wait 3 weeks for the parts to arrive at the shop. You can't get any quotes on any parts, it's just not worth the hassle for them. You close your eyes, order, and decide if you can afford it when they arrive. There is no technical back-up, no-one with any kind of experience unless you want to speak to the alci mechanic in the back that tells you the biggest main jets go in the top carb and the smallest ones in the bottom carb. You can't have an engine serial number traced if the numbers overlap 2 models. They have the same lists we do. You can't explain a problem to them over the phone, because you can hear them paging through a manual looking for an answer, so you always end up with "You'd better bring it in and let our technician take a look at it", which translates to "Bring it to the rev-right guy, we'll charge you per hour, and if we can't fix it, you'll still pay, if we manage to fix it, we'll just charge a We-actually-got-it-right bonus"<br /><br />The second guy is in a scary shop, he's apparently the Yamaha guy. There's about 20 small outboards in his "workshop", where the tools don't move on the benches for weeks at a time, and the engines have cob webs on them. His stock is about 4 impellers, 2 fold-up anchors, and 5 rebuilt props.<br /><br />When it comes to outboards, this place is the desert
