Admin Would You buy Verados?

[La Gringa]

i work with programmers every day.... i know the breed.. but they are geeks... i am pretty sure they don't fish and hunt...

but it's a clever little trick, don't you think?

[Robja]

I see a lot of boats with Verados down here but I haven't heard that many people complain about them. I would prefer Yamahas

[eyefish2good]

He grabbed my attention!

[Sea Draggin]

Black Death

Over the weekend I fished on a boat with suzuki 4 strokes. Although they have the weird touchy throttle, that all 4 strokes seem to have, the motors themselves were clean and quiet. I was very impressed with them.

[striper101]

John,
Having those motors (05's) on our Fountain and getting them replaced with new ones! (Long Story) No, I Would Not buy Verado's for any boat I ever owned!
But, I have to tell ya the new 08's we have run so much better than the 05's! I hope they got all the bugs worked out of them by now!!

BTW, I'm still trying to fullfill your request on that deer!

[tunakiller 4 hire]

I will never buy mercury motors now that i have heard how they treat their customers GOOD JOB MERCURY CUSTOMER SERVICE.

[daytripper]

That would be a big hell no. I've probably put 300 hrs on a pair of '05 225's with no real issues other than their weight and appetite. Kinda like two Rosie Odonnell's attached to the transom. Sorry to hear about all your troubles, Admin. Hang in there and give'em hell. Rather than watching the markets tank, I think I'll go put a few hrs on the little suzuki!
-B

[Questsportfishing]

As for Mercury... I bought a 200 black Max once for my bait boat "Fresh n Lively" it was a 224 mako i had the motor hung rigged and with in three weeks after running coming in Port Everglades with a 50 gallon live well my dog and a 40 gallon live well full of bait and a motor that I took vey good care of ... it started shaking and shoved a rod through the side of the block! The MAN that sold me the engine is still around and voided my warrantee because I was commercial. I dropped that motor in the street .. . I do not like to run the hell out of any boat and people who know me know I will say my piece when someone is driving like a FOOL! The new Verados at first had timing / computer problems (never seen the actual printouts) but after comeing out of the water multipule times the gears didn't much like being in sync anymore and the lower ends would blow! snap a shaft - go slow kinda thing! Every Verado has a computer that records time, rpm, time at rpm's and all the info on the engine. So much technology has been introduced in this engine. I run a 32' Intrepid with a pair that run like the wind and so far have never had problems except for changing out the mid section bracket to keep the water from separating the case that covers the mid section and spraying salt water back into the boat well. Some people who cannot get the 92 octane find the o-2 sensors go bad and they do only run like 250 hp units then. As much trouble as you are having though I would contact Merc. directly at the boat shows, on the phone, by letter, and through the dealer! I like the E-teks anymore they save weight, fuel, I don't have to listen to some whiney ass steering system, I don't have to deal with the dealer to plug it in and wait to here from the warrantee division, I get straight answers from my mechanic everytime and I really never see the mechanic at all in fact.... and he's a cool guy... . Trouble like you are having is bad and record every bit of it! Demand new engines or sell off yours. TnT Marine in Miami is a great guy to see. I do not like mercs and I do have Merc / Yama 225 four strokes from Bass Pro on the back of our personal 28' Bertram converted to outboards. If you call them to ask about filters that can with stand ethanol you get "Merc is not responsable for any fuel issues..." sounds like a recording almost so they don't see any of our support nor do I trust them. They built a motor that runs fast.. thats all.. They sent us a "how are we doing? " question mail thing I told Christine "throw it away..!" write down everything about your engines , every time it's been in the shop, get the print out on each computer and make a call to them.. if you ever needed to protect your investment and save $ it is in this day and if you come down to needing a Attny's # to handle this for you there are a cpl good ones... BUT you must have all your ducks in a row and try to settle this issue other ways first! Ted 954-937-1186 I seem to always have been big enough of a creature to stand up and stat whats wrong when it is ... sometimes it's not so much fun and some people do not like any controversy at all. I believe if you spend your money and time...NIP it in the Butt as soon as you can! good luck and talk to them first.

[clt_capt]

Not a freaking chance. Hopefully someone from Mercury will get the hint that you are getting serious (finally)

Let it fly...

[paraman]

When looking at several boats in the last few years rigged with verado's prior to buying mine I couldn't pull the trigger on any boat with them. I just recently ran a 28 Trition with twin 300 verado's, while I love the power steering as well as the drive by wire controls my answer is still NO!!! to verado rigged boats for me. I perfer Yamaha & Suzuki. I am supprised you were able to buy a Hydra-sport boat with motors other than E-tec and Yamaha. I hope you can resolve your troubles with minimal additional cost to you.
Best of luck

Originally Posted by Admin

This is John Eppehimer's exp. with 2005 Verado 275's.

In 2005 I was a really happy young man as I took delivery on a 2005 Hydra-Sport 33cc. This boat was everything I wanted in a fishing boat. To this day I still love my Hydra-sport but sadly my Mercury Verado's have failed me time and time again.

I had some issues in 2005 and 2006 but it seemed that everyone had the same issues and VERADO was very decent about getting everyone fixed up.

In 2007 hydra-sports made me a great offer to redo my 2005 Hydra Sport. So the boat went on a road trip to Sarasota and Hydra Sports hooked my rig up big time. She came back with new hard top and pipes, all new bolsters and seats, well I'll save you all the upgrades but the boat is upgraded to the hilt and Hydra Sports did an amazing job.

Sadly though when my boat came back up north and went in the water, things just went to hell in a bucket.

My Verado's have been torn completely apart and put back together. Every time I spend time and money to go pick the boat up and put it in the water the freaking motors take a shit.
I do not have the list in front of me right now but I think the boat has been towed back to a dealership about 10 times since 7/3/2006 when the boat went into the shop for the 7/3 repairs. the boat was then worked on again on 7/6, 8/21, 8/25, 8/26, 8/29, 9/11, 9/14, 10/03, 10/10.
So basically with work and busy schedule every time I was able to get the time to go enjoy this boat we would go and grab it, drop her in the water just to have it fail before getting to go fishing. I think 9/6/2007 we made one trip offshore fishing and one of the motors took a complete shit during the trip.
Sadly that was my only fishing trip on this boat since the fall of 2006.

The boat is again sitting at a dealership getting more work done to add to the above. Went down the other day to pick her up and attempt to get her ready for one trip this year.
Sadly when I got there we dumped her in the water just to have the center motor take a shit.

Something that really has gotten me pissed off with Verado is the fact that I have been nothing but nice.
I have kept my mouth shut out of respect that I was the owner of this website, and had hopes of one day maybe being able to work with Mercury in a business sense. So my thoughts always was to keep a level head and be nice hoping they would just do the right thing.

Sadly every where I turn around I see speak with people who had 2005 Verado 275's and had major issues amazingly a lot of people got new motors on their boats.

Well he I sit like a freaking asshole with three piece of shit Mercury Verado's on the back of my boat.

I am going to spend some time typing up all the repairs these motors have gotten. I will also keep this thread updated with info constantly from here on out with the progress of my motors.

Please post up any questions and pass this thread along to anyone thinking of putting the Mercury Verado's on the back of a boat.

It just really kills me that we have spent a ton of money to have a nice boat for me to enjoy fishing with my kids and friends and it just sits as a flower pot.

Anytime I tell the wife the boat is ready can I take the kids out on the water she says " NO WAY ARE YOU TAKING OUR KIDS OUT ON THAT BOAT WITH THOSE VERY UNRELIABLE MOTORS."

Hey that's great, spend $150,000.00 dollars to have a boat to fish with my kids and no way in hell can we trust the motors to take us out and bring us home.

Well that's the start of my story and what I get for keeping quiet.

Anyone that thinks I'm an asshole for posting this just remember I'm the one with a boat I cannot fish on and also the one who owns a killer boat that I can not sell as anyone who looks at the work list that has been done on these motors would have to be smoking crack to buy them for a decent price.

I want to say one last time, I FREAKING love my Hydra-sport, I would buy the 33c again any day of the week.

Thanks for listening to me bitch.

Signing off
John Eppehimer