Havasu Cig

Our Cig was taken to a shop a few weeks ago because one of the motors (500 efi's) was showing 6000 rpm's at WOT.

The shop put a scan tool on the motor while running it and confirmed it was not a problem with the tach.

All electronic components on the motors were switched to see if the problem would now be present on the other motor, and it was not. The motor showing high rpm's still had the problem.

Merc was contacted and gave some ideas to try but nothing worked. The final thing that was done was they switched distributers on the motors and now they say the problem is not present.

Here is where I need opinions...

I have extended warranties on the motors and drives through Marine Innovations, and they refuse to pay the bill because they say no problem was diagnosed. Should I push the issue with them?

The bill from the shop is about $600.00, and I don't even think the problem is fixed. No new parts were put on either motor, just swapped back and forth. They are charging me 5 hours of labor, 80 gallons of fuel, and $60.00 in launch fees from water testing the boat.

I don't have a problem so much with the price, but I feel the problem was probably not fixed. I am just seeking opinions on whether you think I should just pay the bill, or should I raise questions about it since nothing was really fixed.

Thanks in advance for the opinions.

Tinkerer

Just tell the shop to replace both distributors and they should tell the warranty comp. they found the problem and then the bill should get paid.
If no parts are replaced the warranty company wont pay anything.

mcollinstn

I honestly don't think that one motor was spinning up 500 rpm over the other one. That would require slipping in the drivetrain or prop OR an additional 200 horsepower. Don't see it either way.

You had mentioned at some point that they had installed a new pickup in the distributor. That would have been my first stop once the tachs were determined to be functioning properly. "Phantom firing events" they are called. Distributor adding sparks for no good reason, and the tachs simply counting the additional sparks and interpreting them as additional rpm.

Will probably turn out to be a loose or intermittent connection somewhere or some sort of RF interference that was causing it.

Third party warranties do need some sort of verification other than a tech shrugging his shoulders and saying that the problem just "went away". If you were a warranty company you wouldn't pay that either.

Yes, tell them to figure out how to rewrite the service ticket to show that something was wrong, was diagnosed, and parts were replaced.

Downtown42

Is the problem fixed now? Still showing 6000rpms?? I agree that one motor could not be really goin 6000 rpms. Something else electronic.

Havasu Cig

Thanks for the advice....

As far as if it is fixed, I don't know. Since they really did not change anything on the motor I suspect it will re-appear. It is an intermittent problem, so it is kind of hard to tell untill I go out and run it for a while.

I think the motor spinning to 6000 with out changing prop sizes or increasing HP sounds a little bit off to me as well.

I have a set of labbed 30's and labbed 28's and the problem has been seen with the 28's, but I don't think 2" in pitch should = a 500 rpm difference.

Thanks again.