Maintaining Your Engine
Proper engine maintenance is essential to ensuring your outboard engine will provide you with years of trouble-free operation. Mercury Authorized Dealers have the expertise and training to handle all of your engine maintenance service and needs.
In accordance with the maintenance guidelines outlined in our new promotional warranty (5 & Drive Sales Event) and the engine owner’s manual, failure to properly maintain the engine may result in a denied warranty claim.
Should you choose to perform the required engine maintenance work, you must work with your local Mercury Authorized Dealer to ensure the maintenance has been performed and the correct parts installed. The authorized dealer will then log the information into the Mercury Dealer Engine Service log on the Mercury on-line dealer system (MercNET).
Please also keep your receipts and compile a maintenance log for your records. This practice not only helps you keep track of the maintenance done on your engine, but also helps instill confidence with potential buyers or dealers when it comes time to sell or trade in your engine.
Obviously, when I decided to purchase my Verado’s I did so after reviewing the ease of routine maintenance of the engines.
The concern that I (and many other Verado engine owners have) is that the dealer that we decide to take the engine to for “verification” of the routine maintenance will refuse to address us since we did not allow them to charge us for a routine oil change.
I understand that many maintenance issues will require dealer assistance and specialized equipment and should and will be done at an authorized dealer.
However, how will the dealer be able to verify that an oil change was done correctly, or that the lower unit lube was changed correctly? This will probably require (if it can even be verified by the dealer) to inspect the engine oil and lower unit lube and will inquire an expense that we were trying to avoid in the first place.
I am sure that keeping receipts that genuine mercury parts and lubes were used during the routine maintenance will suffice in order to maintain the warranty status of our engines. The receipts with a notation of the hours on the engine will correspond with the dates of service and can be used for proper record keeping.
Unfortunately, Mercury does not keep control of the costs that dealers are demanding for routine oil changes. Regulation in that respect, (if possible), will probably bring more Mercury owners back to the Mercury family.
However, as long as dealers are allowed to set the price of routine oil changes on a “the sky’s the limit basis” Mercury must allow owners to perform their own routine maintenance without fear and repercussion of possibly voiding their warranty.
Jose
Comment by Jose — October 9, 2008 @ 11:00 am
You said: “you must work with your local Mercury Authorized Dealer to ensure the maintenance has been performed and the correct parts installed”
What does that mean exactly? That statement is very vague and open to different interpretations. How is this done?
Thank you
Comment by Bruce L — October 9, 2008 @ 11:04 am
Fair enough.
Comment by vince betette — October 9, 2008 @ 11:44 am
With the cost the dealers charge for the 100 hr. service, it is well worth my time to change all the oils and filters myself. This is made easy with the right tools that are avaliable from Mercury. I would never use anything other than Mercury products. And I always keep receipts. I have 2 275 Verados year 2005, and I love the engines. I hope I can continue to do so, as I have the extended warranty. Thanks, Bill Stanley
Comment by Bill Stanley — October 9, 2008 @ 12:35 pm
“…you must work with your local Mercury Authrorized Dealer to ensure the maintenance has been performed and the correct parts installed.” How does one go about doing this when I purchased my boat from a boat dealer 200 miles away, where he ordered the boat and the manufacturer installed the Verados because I ordered it with Verados? My local dealer is a new “Verado Certified” that is not going to be cooperative with logging the information into online dealer system.
Do I have to worry about this issue if my engines came with the factory 3-year warranty and I purchase the additional 4-year customer protection plan?
Comment by George Aquino — October 9, 2008 @ 12:57 pm
This policy only applies to engines purchased during the new 5 & Drive Sales Event that runs through April 15, 2009. The promotion provides an additional two years of warranty beyond the standard factory warranty. Any authorized Mercury dealer can submit your receipts to the checklist so that records of your maintenance are kept. Your local authorized dealer will have an internal database where they will be able to use a checklist to mark off your yearly engine maintenance. In most cases all you’ll need to provide your dealer are receipts from your maintenance purchases (oil, gearlube, spark plugs, etc.). I hope this clears some things up. Thanks for the responses!
Comment by Mercury Admin — October 15, 2008 @ 2:43 pm
So let me make sure I understand this. If I perform my own service and take the receipts for the oil, filters, plugs, etc. to my local dealer, he will make an entry into the service log for my motor that will keep the additional 2-yr warranty in effect?
Comment by Barry Gibbs — October 15, 2008 @ 6:19 pm
Yes, that is correct. Your local authorized Mercury dealer will keep tabs on your maintenance by entering information into an engine service log.
Comment by Mercury Admin — October 16, 2008 @ 8:13 am