Okay, long story short.

I bought a boat on May 1 2003 with twin 50 Hp Mercury Bigfoot outboards.
The motors are model year 2000, first sold February 1, 2002.

I knew these motors had a problem with the carburetors when I bought them,
but I didn't expect it to be major and the motors are still under warranty
which should cover major expenses.

Wrong on both counts.

These motors have a total of 25 hours on them. They had 16 hours on them
when I bought the boat last year and started fighting this battle.

I understand that the boat sat for a year and was never used. I have
certainly experienced gas going bad in a carburetor and clogging things up,
but I have never experienced a carburetor being totally destroyed in such a
short period of time.

The Mercury dealer tried to clean out and rebuild the carburetors (four on
each engine) but it didn't help, and he says that the insides are corroded
and they can't be fixed. I talked to the Mercury customer service people
and they tell me that this is not a "defect", that the carburetors are bad
because of neglect and that they won't cover it under warranty.

Okay, I am ****ed, but what can I do?

I can order up new carburetors, that's what I can do. Except for one thing:
The top, upper middle, and lower middle carburetors are available in factory
stock. The lower carburetor, for some reason, is unavailable. No time
estimate on when they will get more.

So, in essence, letting these motors sit for a year has resulted in them
being totally worthless.

Keep in mind that the generator (Honda) runs off the same gas supply as the
port engine. It had about the same number of hours on it as the engines
did, and it runs fine. Whatever contaminated the outboards didn't effect
the generator. I have drained the gas tanks on the boat and put the gas
into my car and it ran just fine, there is nothing substantially wrong with
the gas.

I am just amazed that Mercury produces motors that are destroyed from
sitting idle for a year. I am even more amazed that their customer service
is so uncaring and unwilling to help out. I just astounded that they don't
stock replacement parts!

I guess I need to buy new motors.

Do you think I should buy Mercury?


Rod McInnis

Take the carbs to a real autocarb shop and let them take a peek.
When I have taken mid 90s boat carburators apart I was amazed at how simple
they are. I suppose a newer engine might be different but certainly not much
different than some of the pre EFI cars.