I read the manual on Guardian last night and it seems like a nice tool to monitor all aspects of these motors, but it is strange to have so many issues with a brand new boat. We have had low water pressure alarms, map sensor alarms, overspeed alarms, ambient temp alarms(when it was cold out) and total shutdown of motors where they will idle only. The ambient temp sensor I understand due to cold intake air. The ones that do not make sense are the overspeed alarms that reduce engine power when the manual says only it should warn you to back off throttles and not reduce power. After clearing all the codes with a laptop, the boat did seem to run good for the moment and a local Mercury dealer is working on it this am. I just wish it had a trouble free start with issues coming later rather than sooner.

Don't throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water!
 

If this is a new boat with new installs and such, I would not be quick to find fault with the "guardian" feature as the problems sound like they are from problems on rigging and such and will obviously be something that will sort out. This feature can and will save the high cost of repairing Merc Racing engines so use it and get happy with the builder or dealer.

Best Regards,
Ray @ Raylar

You are right. I know this is a good product. I just wish it was more dialed in before first ride in a new boat.

The last season I raced the Merc-Racing 525, "Guardian Mode" cost us more races then it was worth. It would shut us down for no reason that we could find. I could understand if we had low oil pressure, high water temp, etc. but nothing was found... including the Merc-racing tech guys after the race. :angry-smiley-038:

Dan how many hours on this 2008 model 36 ??

14 hours.
The problems seem to be that because the engines were never registered, Mercury Racing never sent the update or recall notices on this boat. They are sending new updated computers overnight and this is supposed to take care of some of the Guardian issue's.

sounds common our's were never registered & cards turned in on our 33 and went thru same crap, just adds to the frustration :angry-smiley-038:
good luck 2morrow and hope that ends all your probs :drink:

Not the End all Be All!
 

Gordo;

Understand your frustration while racing with "guardian" and I personally don't think its a good system for a racing application because the complexities and sometimes over protective nature of the system is not iideal in a racing environment where there is always the inherent opportunity for failures and breakage.
However when the average performance boater is tearing along in his 'toy' with engines roaring, stereo blaring, girls screaming and wind blowing over their ears its a great idea to have a system that will monitor potential engine conditions and damage that might be happening and pull the power back and say to the boater, "Hey Boater I think you may have a problem existing or developing that might take this $$$ engine and turn it into junk in the next few minutes!" That's what a system like "Guardian" is really meant to do.

Best Regards,
Ray @ Raylar

I have been running supercharged engines in boats for years and most likely have suffered some failures that a system like Guardian would have prevented. The new computers Mercury is sending us are supposed to stop some nuisance trips on the system. I guess there have been some upgrades in the last 2 years since this boat was built, but never installed since it just set and no one purchased it.

I hope the new Mercury computers eliminates your problems with the Guardian Mode or most of them so that you can enjoy that beautiful looking boat.