Terrible start to the season

D

Davey W

Guest
I wish I could rewind a week, because things are not going well.

Hunted the north opener here and shot a few birds, but as luck would have it, every single bird landed in places my pup couldn't even get in to, although she gave it a great effort. The beaver pond was just too choked with frag, briars and buck brush. Hunted yesterday in a different spot and never saw a bird. Went out this morning for the first time with the Estuary and thats where it all went wrong.

Brand new 2011 Mercury 15 4-stroke. I changed the oil two days ago as the manual states to do after the break-in period. I noticed last time I ran the boat scouting that the motor was running rough. It sounded like a miss fire but what was odd is that the motor would surge at low power settings. So I put new plugs in and ran it after the oil change. My father inlaw agreed that it sounded like it had a small missfire. So yesterday I dropped it off to the Merc dealer and they said the motor ran fine, no issues. So I headed out this morning for the first duck hunt from the Estuary. Motor ran fine on the way out, set out the decoys and pulled along the bank. Sat for a couple of hours then decided to take a cruise around and see where the ducks were. As I was running, the motor died. It didn't fire right back up either, it took a few tries. When it started back up, it has this loud whine to it. I mean really loud whine. So I pulled the dekes and headed for home.

Went back to the merc dealer and we ran the motor. The mechanic shut it off quick because I'm telling you it sounded bad. He checked the oil level, fine. Pulled the plugs out and they were white, sign of overheat. Compression test was terrible, about 60 per cylinder when they should be 120! He asked me if I ran it through mud and I said nope. The telltale was pissing the whole time too, it never stopped. Something broke internally and caused the overheat, I'm sure of that. This motor is brand new with less than 20hrs on it, so it has a 5 year warranty. They're going to tear it apart today and find what broke. My concern is that Mecury will try and pull some BS and say that I overheated the motor and won't cover it, but I'm not paying a dime. I was an outboard mechanic for 4 years in the Coast Guard and I know how to run a motor. If she showed any sign of overheating I would have shut it down.

I swear that from day one I felt like something wasn't right with this motor. It didn't seem to make enough power. I know the Estuary is a heavy boat and I wasn't looking for speed, but at 3/4 throttle the motor stopped pulling and barely picked up any RPM's. Not to mention I swear it had a missfire at 1/4-1/2 throttle. This is the worst start to a duck season I've had yet. And worst of all, I spent the entire off-season training with my pup and all I want to do is get a bird in her mouth. 3 days of hunting and that hasn't even happened.
 
I've heard from a few owners and a couple dealers, including my cousin who is a dealer / repair facility, that the small 4 stroke Merc's don't have the same power of others out there. The definitely don't compare to the 2 strokes. The problem is, if your going for a NEW motor you don't have many choices in small engines. Merc, Yamaha or Honda. Johnson / Evinrude doesn't make small engines, I don't believe Suzuki does either. Nissan / Tohatsu are relabeled Merc's.

From what I hear though Mercury is pretty good about the warranties, so hopefully the won't give you any problems. For them to void the warranty, it has to be obvious sign of serious abuse. If the water pump was pumping like you said, then you should be fine. And if it wasn't it brand new and was a problem from factory.

Good luck and hope your season turns around. There's still plenty left.
 
Hopefully Mercury does you right. I've had a friend with a lot of issues with his Verados, but there's a whole 'nother animal.

At least you didn't have it break down late in the season in bad weather and ice. Better to get the kinks out early when the weather isn't all that conducive to 'real' duck hunting.
 
Well, my mechanic says the noise was the pinion gear wasn't seated properly, so Mercury warranty service says send the lower unit back and they send me a new one. Bad news is they won't have it until the 20th!! Also he says Mercury explained that the pinion gear creating serious friction on the drive shaft caused cylinder relief valves to open to prevent cylinder damage in the event of an internal part failure. With the lower unit removed, both cylinders showed 120+ on the compression test. As far as the motor not making full power, they're give me a portable tach to take with me on a test run to see about different prop choices. Apparently the motor makes full power in the test tank, but the Estuary is just so big and fat. So I'm without a boat until at least Oct. 20th. Early season sucks anyway.
 
Well Dave, it sounds like most of the problems are being worked out, sorry you will have to wait a couple weeks. So what does the dog have to say about all of this? I'm sure if he could post his frustrations they would center around not retrieving a bird yet. All of this will come together soon. I'm glad that this happened in decent weather and not when your life, or some one elses depended on it.


dc
 
Never had a problem with my two stroke in the ten years i've owned it. Do the usual maint. every year, change the plugs before fishing and duck season run fresh water thru after being in the bay.

Starts on the first or second pull.
 
I have a friend with a small 4 stroke merc he bought new last year, nothing but problems. his has been to the shop a bunch of times
 
Sorry to hear your troubles but it sounds like they are going to do you right. I've not had a four stroke and I'm not sold on them. I'm mostly an OMC guy but I've had both Merc and Mariner 15's, 2 stroke and never had a problem and loved them. I'm still hoping to see the E-Tec down to a 15 now that they are approved in 25hp.

Anyway, good luck and hope you are back in the marsh soon.
 
Dave,

Well I'll be darned they did do it. BUT the weight is the same as the 25hp. Big bummer! I guess I'll keep putting my 2 strokes back together.
 
First of all, its absurd that they can't manufacture 2 stroke outboards 25HP and less anymore. What pollution can a small 2 stroke really put out against all the pollution on the highways today? They really screwed those of us that run small boats and rely on small outboards.

I contacted Mercury today and spoke with someone in the warranty department. I explained how not having a motor for a month is going to ruin my season and they agreed to give authorization to my dealer to rebuild the lower unit, rather than wait for a new one. So that is good news, now I am just waiting to hear on whether or not they can get a new drive shaft and pinion gear soon. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that these parts are sitting in the warehouse nearby. The mechanic had the motor all apart today and all of the internal parts look brand new. The pistons look great, rings are sharp and the cylinders look new. He re-ran the compression test around those relief valves and she showed 130psi in both cylinders! So the top end of the motor is good. The motor never overheated either. Mercury has a safety feature that limits RPM to maximum of 2100 in the event of an overheat, she never got hot enough to engage the limit, so all internal parts are still like new.

As far as the Mercury bashing, I've owned Mercury outboards for 15 years and my father has owned them for over 30 years. It doesn't matter who manufacturers the outboard, every company has lemons. I primarily worked on Johnson outboards in the Coast Guard and we had nothing but problems with their 90 and 115 motors. I've never seen engines blow as much as them Johnsons did. Mercury has been good to me and I prefer them over any other outboard. The Honda and Yamaha motors I've been around have been top notch as well, so I really can't say anything bad about those. We had Honda 4 stroke's on our CG homeland security boats and those engines were absolutely fantastic. Its all perspective, although I wish these new 4 stroke outboards had the power output to match the 2 strokes.
 
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dave sorry to hear your bad luck i took my boat out the day before opening an had probs but i fixed it an all good now.. knock on wood .... lol
 
My dealer couldn't get the parts for lower unit. So yesterday I wrote an email to Mercury customer service, a new motor shipped today. I should have it Monday. Now THAT is customer service!!
 
Jim,

I lot of people will argue that point but I'm not one of them. That's the biggest reason product manufacturing started being shipped off shore. Of course today there are hundreds of reasons for doing it. Not everyone in this country can or want to have a masters degree and be a white collar worker. Including me!
 
Just curious, but what dealer did you get the motor from?
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I actually bought the motor from Bass Pro Shops in Maryland, but N&B marine is my dealer/maintenance place.
 
Ed the EPA has killed more jobs in the name of show room enviormental stewardship
Its an agency run amuck
sad that yamaha still builds all those nice 2 strokes for the rest of the world and ford and Gm, and Jeep have small diesels all over except here
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100% on the Money!

I'm all for environmentally driven legislation......But, this 2 stroke nonsense is STUPID
 
Glad to hear you are getting a new motor. If you have problems right off the bat, you will always have problems.
 
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