I keep my boat down in Sargent and live in Houston. I really did not w... read more I keep my boat down in Sargent and live in Houston. I really did not want to haul my boat all the way back to H town, run around Houston picking it up from a shop to do the yearly check, preventative maintenance, and wanted to change my impeller, along with hearing of a recall Mercury had on this motor and needed to be checked out, so I called Leader Marine since they were close to where I stored my boat in Sargent and they were certified Mercury Mechanics. I called and dealt with Chuck who was a straight guy and let me know if I could drop off the boat but they were in the process of moving shops to Surf Side within a few weeks and I'd may have to pick it up there. Which was OK. I just picked up my boat from Leader Marine's new shop in Surf Side. Their new shop is really nice. All concrete, nice office. Spoke with the owner, Glen, and Chuck, it was all yes sir this and no sir that and so forth. Chuck showed and explained all the work he had done. This is the first time I have had my 13 115 Mercury Optimax in the shop (bought it new) and Leader is keeping records of all diagnostics, and work for me on the motor. They will be my mechanics for this motor unless I stop storing my moat on Texas' Mid Coast because of the professional and helpful attitude they gave me in their customer service.
I took my Donzi with twin 525s for Preventive Maintenance at Victory M... read more I took my Donzi with twin 525s for Preventive Maintenance at Victory Marine. Interestingly I found out They do not know what a “Used Valve” looks like & put a Used Set of Heads on one engine. This led to a complete tear down at Nickens Brothers where a Crack in one of the Victory heads was discovered along with a bad cam shaft. Victory did pay for the rework of the heads, but to add insult to injury, I was charged full list price plus for the cam shaft. What Really concerns me is the engines had 350 hours on them & with the installation of the bad heads by Victory, it probably would have been a catastrophic engine failure (of which would not have been their fault of course). The other issue I had was Victory rebuilt an XR drive & it lasted about ten (10) hours – Lost a complete upper & again was Not Their Problem. Nice folks, but be careful as to the work Victory claims to do.
