Engine Hesitation 350 Merc

[Tige M.D.]

the engine that is in your boat was most likely chosen buy your dealer. tige will put a merc, marine power, or pcm in their boats. the dealer is who decides what they want on their floor. we chose marine power last year and leave pcm and merc as options.

something to think about: last year at our owners regatta we had approx. 140 boats show up. my mechanics and i worked on 38 boats. all were mercruiser. this year we had 160 boats and we worked on 12. all were mercruiser. so, in 2 years i have yet to work on a marine power at our regatta's. i just think they (marine power) still give a crap about their product.

the 1 and only pcm we sold has been perfect so far.

[Tip]

Those stats do not bode well for Merc. I did not know about other engine options when I ordered the boat I had a Merc (5.0L) in my previous boat and it never gave me any problems. I have a friend who has a different boat but same engine as mine (5.7 MPI) and his does not hesitate. His engine is two years older than mine though. Sounds like Merc did something to the engine in 2003 and just does not want to own up to fix it.

Based on some of the problems other Merc owners are experiencing I should consider myself lucky, other than the hesitation problem my engine has been trouble free...knock on wood!

Thanks for all the help, if you hear about anything that might fix this please let me know.

[Tige M.D.]

ya know tip, i was repairing a start problem on a volvo penta 5.7 today and once i got it running i decided to check it for the same hesitation as the merc has. guess what? it did the same thing. i don't think it is as noticable due to the stiff throttle handle they use.

your 5.7 is not the 5.7 from 2 years ago. when gm decided to allow the new 5.7 to be marinized it changed everything for us mechanics. new cooling system, new ecm that will actually think for itself, vertually no distributor and crank position sensors. i am not so sure it is all mercs fault. i am just tired of hearing their ho-hum comments.