XR pinion gears and warranty?
 

I drained my drives for the second time today. The first time I drained it was after I bought the boat and they had less than an hour on them, minor christmas trees on the plugs. Today they have 20 hours on them and the plugs have enough shavings on them to create about 1/32nd of an inch. I am running 500 efi's from the factory and have 8 months of factory warranty left. Has anyone tried to have their XR gears fixed under warranty? If Merc will not warranty the Drives should I have them torn down imediately and have the pinion gears changed?

Quest,

You'll probably get mixed responses. For my 02 cents, I would pull the drives and check the lower gears. This is the least expensive observation point, and generally where you'll find the source of the metal shavings. Again, just my perspective, but there should be no continual shavings on the magnets. They are clear evidence that wear is occuring, and ultimately that wear will lead to failure. The gear teeth begin to "chip" and may last for lots of hours or break, luck plays a big role.

As to warranty, Merc would want to see the gears if the drive isn't otherwise broken. Are you anywhere near Valencia? If so Bob Teague could check your drives and advise accordingly.

Good luck,

Steve

Thanks Steve. I am close to Dick Simon and was going to call them this morning. I kept a sample of the drive oil just in case they want to see it.

Anyone else ever deal with Mercury on this issue?

It appears that no one has had any warranty experience with Merc on the XR gears so I have a follow up question. I talked with the dealer today and they said that unless it fails Mercury says that the flakes in the gear lube is normal wear. She suggested that the extended warranty from Merc may be something I would want to look at, so I asked for the information on what it covers and how much. I work in the auto industry and have never purchased an extended warranty, but with all the talk of weak gears on the XR I will look at what it covers. Has anyone ever made a claim on the Mercury extended warranty and if you did how tough was it to get them to cover the repairs, how much did you pay for the extended warranty?

I have 60-70- hours on my Bmaxs and there is no metal on the plugs, but its stock 500efis

Quest,

Give Tony San Marco a call at 954-764-1724. Their main business is Merc outdrives, and they do most of the warranty work for the Sonic Factory which is about 3 miles from the SM shop. They have taken care of my drives for the past several years including warranty issues with Merc. The extended plan, if it's the one Merc backs is a good program, however.... If you blow an XR they will probably replace it once. Anymore claims after that and they'll try very hard to blame it on operator error.

Merc will hammer the dealer making the warranty claim, and in turn the customer. If you have a newer boat from a factory that buys lots of Merc parts, you tend to carry more weight with your claim.

The folks at Dick Simon are also well respected and will give you the straight stuff.

Good luck!

if your boat has stock merc 500's and is still in warranty you will have no problem getting them to cover your repairs.when an xr drive fails they will usually ask the shop to verify that the boat has stock merc power,and they might send their service rep out also.have the shop call merc warranty before you pull down the drive to get an ok to inspect it.we have had to warranty a few xr drives and have never had a problem with merc.

Thanks for the information. If the extended warranty is reasonable I may buy it for the piece of mind.