Trying to get warranty work from a Briggs service center is a royal pain in the azz. Unless its a bolt on item or a blown engine leaving your motorless anyway you might as well bite the bullet and buy the parts yourself. Been without my motor for a couple weeks now and having to haggle over replacing a cracked sump (case cover). Dude really pissed me off when he said that these motors don't start leaking just weeks before the warranty runs out insinuating I must have done something to it. I told the forker it could start leaking the same day the forking warranty runs out and that I was told that it has happened to other motors. I also explained that I had the motor in a Briggs shop in June where they replaced the oil seal which turned out to not be the problem. He said in that case Briggs would have to investigate weather or not that mechanic did something wrong, causing the leak. I'm not asking for a motor replacement, just the forking cover to be replaced so it don't leak oil. Motor runs great. He said I would have to fight with Briggs over it, if it had been 6 months old they wouldn't question it but being close to 2 years old it would have to be investigated before warranty. So basically the 2 year warranty is really only good for 6 months, after that it may or may not be honored. He said it could be a month or so before a decission was made and even then I might have to pay for it anyway. It ain't worth being without a boat for 6-8 weeks and missing gator and teal season for a couple hundred bucks to me. If your debating mods and have 6 months or so on your motor you might as well do it. Briggs warranty ain't worth the forkin paper its printed on if you have to dispute chit.

That sucks!!!! Take a drive down to franklin, LA and let Bart fix it..

It ain't worth the gas and time. I can buy the part and do it myself with alot less hassle. We chit out of luck on any good service centers here for outboard applications. If its not a lawnmower they can roll into their shop they don't want to fork with it. You could force the issue but do you really want someone working on your chit that don't want to to begin with. I don't. With all the mudmotors in the area now someone could make some good money working on them.

You Exactly Righte 'bout someone 'round our area Pokers1. And ... fo whatever it's worth ..... I agree with you ....

Briggs Service Sucks !!!!!!

Ifin' I was you ..... CoonDiks, Hoyt, E.V.T. would be mines options.

Poker,

I really do feel for you because we are cutting close to teal season and gator seasin IS just around the corner.

If you are into the gators for $$$$$, then it is a no-brainer. Fix it yourself.

Its funny that you mention all this, because I am trying to hold out on the mods as I am about 8 months into my warranty. Now you really got me thinkin'.

Maybe if you call PD in loreauville they could apply some pressure in the right place, or give you some insight on what to do. The phone call would be worth it man, call PD.

I'm saving my pennies for some mods right now. I just need to get back on the water yesterday. I can run my motor as is for awhile. The leak ain't bad and it doesn't leak until the motor heats up good to begin with. So i'm gonna fill my gator tags (I hope) and then put a new cover on. Caddo Dennis has done the case gasket change and offered to help with mine so I think I'll take him up on the offer. It will give me an excuse to spend the weekend at Crips anyway.

I said forkit, picked up my toy and headed home.

My experience a couple of years ago:

My muffler baffle broke and the muffler sounded like a rattle can. Went through Briggs for a warranty replacement. Checked the Commercial Service locator website and got a list of 'Authorized Service Centers' these have the Vanguard icon by the listing. These were all lawn mower shops, now the fun began.


First Place (closeset to the house- 1.3 miles):

"We don't work on outboards, sorry"



Second Place:

"It's a what? I didn't know Briggs made a motor with that much horse power, we don't work on anything that big"



Third Place:

"WOW, that's a BIGGUN! Let me check with Earl (5 minutes pass). Its on a WHAT again? Well you can bring it in but I'm not sure how that warranty stuff works, we'll have to call the regional dudes at Briggs to see how to handle this"

(I pictured the guy on the old AAMCO commercial tapping the big wrench in his hand saying "I never worked on one of those before")



Fourth Place:

"Mufflers aren't covered under warranty, they are usually OEM. Go back to the manufacturer" .... "Well I'm not sure why they sent you to me, thats not covered".



Fifth Place:

"Don't do marine" [click]



Sixth Place (38 miles from the house):

"Well, I guess you could bring it in so we could look at it. You will have to leave it here. ... No we can't just listen to it and tell, we will have to check it out and order the part... You will have to leave it here because we have to install it because its under warranty.... Then you will have to leave the boat here too. ....Yes its 4 weeks, its summertime! Bring it in the winter and you will be in and out!"



So I called Briggs Customer Service, they sent me to the regional dealer representative (his cell message said he is on vacation for two weeks). I was finally forwarded to the guy who works warranty. "click, click, click [typing on a keyboard] OK now, did you try xxxxx? [the First place] ....You did!? Hmmm. .... Well how about yyyy? [The Second place]............" And down the list I had in front of me he went.

Finally found a shop- not listed on the Briggs site that was MM friendly and replaced it without making me leave the boat.

Ive had nothing but problems with the "mastery service" or whatever the fuk you call it center up here...

I needed a case gasket replaced.... Thats it, just a case gasket.

First they werent going to do it. Then i said you got to, its a Briggs motor, you will work on it. They said we dont do boats, we cant store it. They said pull the powerhead and we'll do it. So i did


I drove to Tulsa, dropped it off, and they said well where is your boat motor. I said you told me to pull the powerhead. Well we cant work on it. How do we know it goes on that Mud Buddy thing???

I said well first off its a Pro Drive, and second off, look at the stickers that are on the air cleaner and cowling. Not to mention the PRO DRIVE BANNER on the back of my truck!

So did it.

2 weeks go by. Not a call.

I call down there and ask about my motor. "Hang on ill let ya talk to Mikey"............................................... 2 minutes...................................................................... 5 minutes, im about to hang up and "Mickey" goes hey dooooood were waiting on parts. I said for what. He goes, well some parts got back ordered, and they are coming from Oklahoma City, so your coils will be here in the morning.

(Im almost steaming) And i simply ask.... So tell me again why your messing with the coils? He said well your Lincoln Welder wouldnt run because of a bad coil......... I said well your supposed to be working on a 36 Vanguard not some welder. He said well your name is on the welder, and i guess the powerhead has been done for a week. We didnt know whos it was.....


So i take it home, put the clutch on put the motor mouting plate back on, get all the wiring back on..... Fire her up.... And check for leaks.... The PTO Seal is SPEWING oil...


I call them back, say yall worked on my 36 vangaurd and you replaced the PTO seal on my motor as well as a case gasket. And well i started it back up and they say, we will let you talk to Mickey...................................2 minutes..........................................5 minutes..................... Mickey said its your motor, you have other problems with it. Bring it in and we will get it back to you by the end of next we.. Click

I ordered my own seal, and i will replace the damn thing myself. Fuck them

Yep, thats how it be here too. PTO seal is easy though.

I know this may start World War 3 and get me blacklisted from the site, but here it is....mods will put you without a boat anyway. My buddy had a 36PD, a damn good mechanic put an EVT stage 3 kit on, and in a year it ended up with pins in the block, constantly breaking the camshaft, 8, yes 8 rebuilds cause the thing blew all to shit, cracked every fukkn thing, kept breaking the bolts right off the crank case. He had to send the motor to EVT several times, and he had to pay shipping every time. I don't think he ever got 10 hours out of it the whole year, and he never had a problem with it the 2 years before he modded it. Even after the mods, he babied it, never had it over 3500 RPM for fear of it breaking down, which it did anyway. That motor stuck us every single time we took it out. He ended up buying an outboard for his old boat just so he had something to use cause his PD was useless the whole year. Had a real hard time with EVT honoring anything, god knows what it cost him for all that work, on the last trip the mechanic wouldn't even charge him for tearing it down because he felt so bad for him. He has a new stock powerhead now, but it was a very expensive lesson. I know I see a lot of you boys all modded out, and I see a lot of you working on them, so I just gotta say it ain't worth it to me to spend thousands for a few mph and constantly having to work on yer sht. I'd rather hunt and fish out of it.

So is the muffler under warranty?

Well, I guess I would have to say lawn mower shops are chaotic in general. I was running a couple weeks ago and hit something and gave the motor a pretty good lick. Knocked the tiller handle out of my hand ,lower unit came up and governor kicked me out like its supposed to.

Next day I checked everything out at home on the trailer and motor ran like crap. The impact completely knocked the low idle governor spring off. No problem, dealer is 1 hour away vs. small engine shop on the way to work. I have my Briggs part list for my model and stop by to order it plus an extra large govenor spring as a spare from the lawn mower shop. After three days she finally ordered it, and called me back. Thankfully the spare is on backorder, and the one I need was in stock. Went to pick up the spring and she gave me a seal. WTF!!! I told her and she said OH, that's not your's. Long story short the other governor spring is still on BO.

IF I need serious service I will drive the whole hour to my dealer. In this case it was still worth it to do the lawn mower shop because time and fuel was more expensive. But I can see the headache can get big real fast.

Poker: I was really hoping PD in L'ville would take care of it by sending you a new sump and telling you to ship the old one back to them. It wouldn't have surprised me one bit.

I hope it works out for you and you do well with the gators.

Deathmetal duk: Yeah you get a yard pass with that avatar. In all seriousness, when you go with mods I think Stage I sounds like it is the least trouble based on what everyone else is saying. It also has everything to do with installer and especially the OPERATOR. Those that have mods don't push them all the time. They just like knowing that its there when you need it.

Good luck Poker.

Its not a PD issue as the PD warranty is long gone, however it goes without saying that PD offered to push this warranty issue through Briggs for me. PD has always done me right but I don't expect them to be replacing Briggs parts. They in business to make money too. H&W Marine also offered to handle the issue for me even though I didn't buy my motor from them, they just are not a Briggs service center. It was My decission to say forkit as I don't want the downtime right now and I can live with a leaking motor until I have time to change it out. To tell me it could be a month or so, + the 2 weeks I have already been boatless for a couple hour repair is BS. To tell me that a motor that starts leaking from a cracked or pitted block at 1 year and 9 months may not be covered by the 2 YEAR warranty is bullshit. But again I'm not willing to do without my boat right now to save a couple hundred bucks. My sanity and time on the water is priceless.

Correction on my comment- he had to send the heads back a few times, not the motor. EVT paid for the shipping on parts they sent, but he had to pay for the shipping on anything he sent them. Maybe just bad luck or a lemon kit. I know the EVT dudes are gonna be pissed at me now, but ah well. I saw what I saw, I was sitting in the boat looking back as we rode and frigging bolts were flying off the motor, about 1 hour after it had been torn down and fixed by a master mechanic, for the umpteenth time. I also remember him not pushing it past 3500 rpms ever. As much as the installer and the operator, as DPD said, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that that kit pushes the motor beyond the brink of what that motor could ever hope to handle. Just my .02. Remember, opinions are like assholes, everybody's got one, and sometimes they stink.

Who cares if sombody gets pissed the truth is the truth.

KP called me today and I'm gonna run it down there monday. PD is gonna do the warranty for me at their shop.

Glad to hear they are helping you out,thats the service that I like to hear about.

I been following this for a couple of days and all I can say is....I'm so confused!...but I'm glad, whatever the whole problem was that someone has been good enough to take care of it.

Nothing to be confused about. If you got someone local that gets excited about doing warranty work on your Briggs, consider yourself lucky.

TBS, you are missing something because you aren't comprehending what I said. The bolts "flying" off the motor were the broken crank case bolts- again. Watched them go right overboard. I'm not going to bash EVT because it's not right, a lot of people are happy with them, and I know that this site is majorly bias to defending them, I was just stating what happened from my view. In response to "What torque specs did the so called "master mechanic" follow for the head bolts? Gaskets? Who set the valve clearences?" Don't bash the mechanic, he works on everybody elses mud motors around here, he knows what he is doing. I believe EVT did the head work themselves, as I stated in my correction, and as you confirmed by saying "EVT did headwork for your buddy and some "master mechanic" installed them.", the motor kept breaking camshafts and breaking crank case bolts. I was there for 2 of the 8 breakdowns, if you want to know all the details, send a PM to Drake1, it's his company, or send one to Radikkle, it was his motor. I'm not here to fight, and I'm not going to fight, so don't condescend me just because EVT was good to you. This is not our forum and not even our subject, it's Poker's. And for "speaking out of turn" on a public forum, it is a public forum so there is no speaking out of turn, we are all welcome here. I can only state what I have seen and heard.

Thanks for clearing it up for me.

PD got me hooked. Great service as usual. Headed north, well after a stop at Prejeans for lunch.

Damn if I was home Id come eat with ya.


Dont they realize I can work from home with a wireless internet camera pointed at the boat LOL