Admin Would You buy Verados?

[Gringo]

I hear E-tecs are good if you have a long winter and don't need the boat all year.

[Wetspotnz]

Originally Posted by Gringo

I hear E-tecs are good if you have a long winter and don't need the boat all year.

Immmm, that is not a good look and I must admit that this is the 1st that I have heard of any makors with these motors.

I suppose that down in New Zealand we have not had enough in the market sold and as such operational for any reasonable hours to start seeing any potential issues .

On the basis that the average boatie would be lucky to do 30-50hrs a year as opposed to me doing in excess of 200hrs P/Year it might take a while for me to see that type of report.

Quite happy with my 5.0lMPI Mercrusier

[swell rider]

John,

Sorry to here about our motors. I haven't hear to many good thing about them. I run Suzukis on my boat and haven't had any problems at all. Knock on wood.Ken

[MR. tuna]

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

John, first off I would like to say you are no doubt a stand up guy. When we spoke a year ago about your motors I told you to hire an attorney. You said
" I am not an attorney type of person and would rather see if they will just do the right thing as one day SportFishermen.com and Brunswick will do buisness. My company comes first my boat comes last."

I completely respect you for going this route and by the looks of this thread you have enough respect in this industry to sway a lot of buyers. Shame on Verado you all had every chance to make this right. John, standing up to them is not bad for buisness, fact is this thread no doubt will prove to the marine industry that your word and the power of Sport Fishermen makes people buy or not buy.

Take care buddy and hope the wife and kids are well.

[Five4Fighting]

I have a single 150 Opti on my boat. Never had a single issue with it other than the normal wear and tear. But when I will need to repower I will have to think long and hard about which company I would want to give my money too. I am sure as heck not buying a Verado after reading all of this.

Shane

[Gringo]

i wrote an email yesterday to that contact at Brunswick. I explained my own situation, and without going into details here, pointed out that they were getting a black eye, and that I was in the market for a replacement boat and was concerned about their Verado support. I referenced this thread and John Eppenheimers situation.

This morning, less than 24 hours later, I have just received an email from Steve Miller, Verado Platform Manager at Mercury in Fond du Lac WI.

Mr. Miller did not send me a form letter, but wrote me a personal email. Among his assurances about Mercury, he wrote (and I quote):

"Regarding Mr. Eppehimer, we were very sorry to hear about his situation. After we received your note I went out to the web site and found his posting. Rest assured we have already made contact with him and will make every effort to resolve the concerns as quickly as possible. We take customer satisfaction very seriously at Mercury and we value our relationships with our customers very much."

To me, that says a lot. I am hoping we hear from Capt. John E. shortly that Mercury has indeed contacted him and is working to resolve this issue.

You really can't ask much more from them, so far. I know I feel more reassured.

[Admin]

Well I will confirm that my phone did ring this morning. We spoke about the issues at hand with the motors and he said he would call me back later today.

He just called to inform me that they would upgrade my boat to triple 300's for $5,000.00 a piece. Well first off my boat can not handle 300's.
So he tells me they will put new 275's on the back of the boat for $3,000.00 a piece.


I have said on this site for years now that I am so very impressed with the power that the verado motors have.

BUT
WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD I INVEST ANOTHER $9,000.00 DOLLARS INTO VERADO MOTORS?

I just for some reason can not stomach putting more money into these motors. Fact is when my boat did run the verados are amazing as the power is off the charts. I just can not in my mind spend a dime on these things.

Since my boat is fixed as they call it maybe we should put together a canyon trip this week? Who wants to head 80 miles offshore with me and see if they work?

Just make sure you tell your wife that if this boat breaks as it usually does it will be about a 8 hour ride home from the fishing grounds.

Originally Posted by Gringo

i wrote an email yesterday to that contact at Brunswick. I explained my own situation, and without going into details here, pointed out that they were getting a black eye, and that I was in the market for a replacement boat and was concerned about their Verado support. I referenced this thread and John Eppenheimers situation.

This morning, less than 24 hours later, I have just received an email from Steve Miller, Verado Platform Manager at Mercury in Fond du Lac WI.

Mr. Miller did not send me a form letter, but wrote me a personal email. Among his assurances about Mercury, he wrote (and I quote):

"Regarding Mr. Eppehimer, we were very sorry to hear about his situation. After we received your note I went out to the web site and found his posting. Rest assured we have already made contact with him and will make every effort to resolve the concerns as quickly as possible. We take customer satisfaction very seriously at Mercury and we value our relationships with our customers very much."

To me, that says a lot. I am hoping we hear from Capt. John E. shortly that Mercury has indeed contacted him and is working to resolve this issue.

You really can't ask much more from them, so far. I know I feel more reassured.

[Sea Draggin]

Originally Posted by Admin

Since my boat is fixed as they call it maybe we should put together a canyon trip this week? Who wants to head 80 miles offshore with me and see if they work?

.

I'll go with you................






.............If you can have some yamaha's on it by then

[giantfan]

Originally Posted by hotshot1

if I ever went outboards again I would go Etec

I think you should Hotshot 1. I know just the pair for ya

Sorry for the hijack John.

[Gringo]

Well, that response, that you should put more money into three engines that you paid full price for up front, sort of surprises me. You have already paid the purchase price, plus how much more, just to try to have three working outboards. And you don't have three reliable outboards.

If this whole situation costs Mercury ONE outboard motor sale, they have lost the $ 9K that they would have gotten from you. Thats peanuts to them. They spend more than that on giveaways at trade shows. I suspect that if they don't take care of this problem it will cost them a lot more than three outboard upgrades.

If, on the other hand, Mercury took this opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to customer support by honoring their warranties...and as a result saved their reputation in this not-insignificant market, it would go a long way toward making people like me more comfortable buying Merc products going forward.

Lets face it, they are in a competitive situation. While I am sure most of us would love to buy US made products, at some point we have to make changes in our own best self interest.

From a marketing standpoint, I can see they are not looking at the big picture here. Its about more than three lemon engines. They should explain that they had a bad run, that all three of these were from that bad run, and then tell us that they fixed the problems in subsequent production.

That would limit the bad reputation to that one run of products, and isolate the rest of the product line and keep its reputation intact along with the confidence of the market in Mercury products.

And they should know they don't want to lose customers, to Yamaha, E-tec, Suzuki, or any one of their competitors. What if John now buys three Suzukis and is delighted with them? How does that affect Mercury going forward, when for the next twenty years John tells everyone he knows about his bad Mercury experience?

It is a whole lot easier and more cost effective to maintain market share than it is to try to regain it once it's lost.

If it were me at Mercury, back in my marketing days, I would consider shipping three new units to the local dealer, tell him to replace John's three bad ones, and then let the dealer keep the busted ones for parts and his trouble. Or to sell as used outboards after suitable repairs/upgrades.