Mandatory Tie-In Sale of Mercury with Whaler

  ContinuousWave
  Whaler
  Moderated Discussion Areas
  ContinuousWave: The Whaler GAM or General Area
  Mandatory Tie-In Sale of Mercury with Whaler

search | FAQ | profile | register | author help

Author Topic:   Mandatory Tie-In Sale of Mercury with Whaler

jimh posted 06-25-2014 02:08 PM ET (US)
This topic became a long sidebar in another discussion. The many postings are now moved to their own thread.
martyn1075 posted 06-23-2014 06:23 PM ET (US)

quote:
"I don't think BRP is going to give you one, after you've said that."
BRP wont give you one, and Whaler won't allow you one. Catch-22!
djahncke posted 06-24-2014 07:11 AM ET (US)
Martyn,
I have Evinrude motors on all five of my whalers. Boston Whaler didn't stop me. It isn't that Whaler won't allow it, they just won't deliver a new one without a Mercury on it.
masbama posted 06-24-2014 10:39 AM ET (US)
I just think they're gonna have to have a 'classic' white motor for us Whaler folks to be happy.
martyn1075 posted 06-24-2014 11:31 AM ET (US)
Don were your ETEC's on all brand new Whalers or used?
djahncke posted 06-24-2014 02:09 PM ET (US)
Martyn,
I only purchased one of my Whalers new (I couldn't afford my fleet if I had to purchase them all new) and that one did come with an Evinrude. And my 25WA is the only one that I have changed from another brand to Evinrude (Yamaha to Evinrude).
My point is that Boston Whaler doesn't allow or disallow you to have any type of motor on a boat that you own, there is no way they could do that legally. But they now bundle a black motor with each new whaler.
SJUAE posted 06-24-2014 03:16 PM ET (US)
Martyn
I do not see any Mercury here on this obviously new Outrage 220:
http://i707.photobucket.com/albums/ww76/SJUAE/220/220stern.jpg~original
But us overseas chaps do not have it all our way we do pay a premium being outside USA on BW's and boats generally compared to US
This stock model with very few options is around 80k USD (no tax to pay)with no engine(s)or T-Top, cushions etc but it does have a trailer. The only good new is our outboards usually come complete with rigging and prop etc in the box from Evinrude.
My old Outrage 210 was the same (ie blank hull) and I added a 200 ETEC
Regards
Steve
martyn1075 posted 06-24-2014 06:18 PM ET (US)
Good to hear, a few years back I was pricing out a new 205 conquest with a representative of the Whaler dealer in our area. I requested a Honda instead of the Mercury that was on there and I was told that wouldn't be possible. It would be sold with the motor that was shipped. I had a big conversation about it with him, but I was pretty much pulling at teeth. Instead of trying to make it work out I received the question why would you want to do that? Honda? why? this Optimax is far better choice. It got complicated so I walked. I have heard this before about dealers only selling you a Whaler with a Mercury. I am from Canada and maybe that has something to do with it as perhaps the rules are changed for us. Wouldn't be the first time.

jimh posted 06-24-2014 08:45 PM ET (US)
New Boston Whaler boats will continue to sold with a mandatory tie-in sale of a Mercury outboard in the USA.
martyn1075 posted 06-25-2014 12:02 AM ET (US)
Hold on here, I'm confused now Jim says that boston whaler is mandatory to buy mercury with whaler yet others above say no that you can still purchase one without to put on a Etec.. I always understood that you could not purchase a whaler without a mercury which is why I made the comment about the Etec won't give you one and whaler won't allow/sell you one.
What is it??
martyn1075 posted 06-25-2014 12:05 AM ET (US)
Hold on here, I'm confused now Jim says that boston whaler is mandatory to buy mercury with whaler yet others above say no that you can still purchase one without to put on a Etec.. I always understood that you could not purchase a whaler without a mercury which is why I made the comment about the Etec won't give you one and whaler won't allow/sell you one.
What is it??
Peter posted 06-25-2014 07:15 AM ET (US)
Martyn -- Europe and other foreign countries may have anti-competition laws that are more strict than in the U.S. If not more strict, then it may be that there isn't as much competition over there and the application of their anti-competition laws strict is such that Whaler cannot do the mandatory bundled sales that Whaler is able to get away with in North America without violating the foreign countries anti-competition laws.
Local laws and regulations have a huge influence on how commerce is conducted locally. The EPA regulations of emissions of outboard motors is but one example.
K Albus posted 06-25-2014 08:37 AM ET (US)
I believe Martyn is confused by Don Jahncke's comments. I think I can clear up the confusion. Of Don's five Whalers, only one was purchased new. I believe that is a Dauntless 17, which Don purchased new before Whaler instituted its mandatory tie-in with Mercury motors. Since the mandatory tie-in did not exist at that time, the dealership where Don bought the Dauntless 17 was able to equip the boat with an Evinrude motor.
Don also owns four other Whalers, none of which are powered by Mercury motors. All of those boats were purchased used, and thus could be powered with any brand of motor. I'm not certain of the model years for Don's four additional Whalers, but I believe all of them pre-date the mandatory Mercury tie-in which was instituted by Whaler in approximately 2000. Thus, it is quite possible that none of Don's boats were ever powered by a Mercury motor.
Martyn, if you buy a new Whaler in the United States, it will be powered by a Mercury motor. What Don is saying in his posts is that while Whaler may require you to purchase a Mercury motor, Whaler can't prevent you from repowering with an Evinrude motor. It will cost you, however.
Ferdinando posted 06-25-2014 08:54 AM ET (US)
Tell me about it. It cost me $6 grand to repower my 2008 190 a year after I purchased it, but getting rid of the Merc and putting on an E-Tec is "priceless".
Jefecinco posted 06-25-2014 10:55 AM ET (US)
There is a "work around" if you can find a willing and capable dealer. Of course there is a price but it should certainly be less than Fred's cost.
In my case the cost was slight as my dealer was Killinger Marine in Pensacola, FL which was an excellent dealer which sold multiple lines one of which was Boston Whaler. Unfortunately Killinger eventually sold out to MarineMax as did many Boston Whaler dealers in the 90s and 2000s. I was told by the service manager that Killinger was told that he could sell or they would open another location and compete directly with him in the SeaRay and Boston Whaler lines
The deal was for a Dauntless 16 to be delivered with an Evinrude 115 HP engine. Killinger simply removed the Mercury 90 on the Dauntless and installed the Evinrude before delivery. I'm sure the Mercury ended up on another Killinger boat and was sold at retail as it had zero hours of use.
Butch
Phil T posted 06-25-2014 12:43 PM ET (US)
By going through CPG, you can purchase a whaler hull with any engine you want:
http://www.brunswickcgp.com/Page.aspx/pageId/154934/page.aspx
It will cost ya.

SC Joe posted 06-25-2014 02:18 PM ET (US)
Not too long ago, in California you could buy a few model Whalers with no engine as the spec'd Mercurys (Optimax's?) would not meet California's emission requirements.
I don't know if Mercury has fixed this by using different engines that do meet the California specs.
martyn1075 posted 06-25-2014 03:11 PM ET (US)
Interesting it does appear that the Optimax line is shrinking a bit more and more, and if they are still hanging around, the Whalers that are shipped all have four strokes on them. If you want an upgrade motor its probably the "new" 150 Four Stroke
The 2013 190 Outrage ships with a 150 Verado funny enough but you can option out for a new 150 Fourstroke. The 190 Montauk has a 115 four stroke and one can upgrade to the new 150 Four stroke. My point is Whaler is not really giving you the option for a two stroke Optimax 2 star engine it would probably create a loop hole for them to lose out in a tie in sale with a bare hull sold in California and other areas as well. Yes of course the market is mostly four stroke so we can assume that is big part of it as well, but is it safe to say they do not want Whalers sold or the potential to be sold without a Mercury on the back?
Martyn

bluewaterpirate posted 06-25-2014 07:57 PM ET (US)
The 225 Optimax has been three star rated for some time just re powered my Ventura with one.
http://s676.photobucket.com/user/bluewaterpirate/media/ Optimax%20225%202014/IMG_8076.jpg.html
Tom
SC Joe posted 06-26-2014 01:21 PM ET (US)
Tom, you may very well be correct.
I did a short google search that pointed me back here:
http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/021969.html
And it appears it was a 2 star certified Verado issue that couldn't be sold in CA. I don't know if that certification has been updated since then.
California folks: Can you buy a new Whaler with no engine?
jimh posted 06-26-2014 05:36 PM ET (US)
There is generally no problem for Brunswick's Mercury outboard engines of the OptiMax line to meet c.2012 EPA compliance or "Three-Star" emission. In fact, it is only by selling a lot of compliant engines like the OptiMax that Brunswick can sell non-Three Star engines like their VERADO engines in the USA. The EPA works on a fleet average basis, so if your fleet of engines sold across the USA includes a lot of compliant engines you make room in your fleet average emission for a portion of that fleet to consist of non-compliant engines like VERADO Two-Star rated engines. Also, the VERADO, while rated as Two-Stars should probably be thought of as a 2.8-Star engine, that is, its emission levels are not very far away from meeting Three-Star. As a result, they do not pull down the fleet average very far, so they are generally not constrained (as far as I know) in their sales by their emission ratings. I think Homeland Security and other government maritime agencies are probably the biggest customers, and who knows if those engines have to comply with any regulations.
I don't know how the regulators work in California. There may be a ban on certain lakes for anything less than Three-Star. I don't know if for total sales in California they work on a fleet average basis or if they insist on every engine sold meeting their Three-Star level. Maybe they have a fleet average for engine sold in California.
Boston Whaler has not offered any OptiMax engines as options for many years now. As far as I know--which is based on face to face discussion about this with senior Whaler people--the principal reason for not offering OptiMax was the generally very low percentage of buyers selecting that option. Rather than maintain an option that was only selected by a few percent of customers, Whaler just decided to simplify their inventory and rigging and not offer OptiMax. As far as I know it was more the customers telling Whaler what they wanted than Whaler telling the customers what they had to take.
GSH posted 06-27-2014 02:03 AM ET (US)
Friday trivia:
Here in Finland you can currently order any Whaler model on the price list as ”Delete engine”, please see:
http://powerproducts.wihuri.fi/sites/default/files/BW%20Hinnasto%202014. pdf
However, if the real prices are anything like those on the official pricelist, ordering a new Whaler without Mercury power does not seem like a very good deal.
Still, the choice is there.
Br, Seb
Hoosier posted 06-27-2014 09:45 AM ET (US)
Is "Mercury Only" a Whaler policy or is it being forced on them by Brunswick?
Hoosier posted 06-27-2014 09:50 AM ET (US)
Hmmm.... I just checked the Harris-Kayot site since their plant is here in Fort Wayne and they offer two engine choices, Mercury and Honda. So Brunswick is allowing them some flexibility.
jimh posted 06-27-2014 10:17 AM ET (US)
Brunswick would probably like to be able to enforce a mandatory tie-in sale of a Mercury engine with all of their boat brands, but they have found a lot of resistance to that from the dealers and customers of some of their other brands. As a result, on some Brunswick boat brands the dealers can obtain boats without a Mercury engine pre-installed on the transom.
The situation with some of these other Brunswick boat brands is analogous to the situation of Boston Whaler when it was first taken over by Brunswick. Initially the Boston Whaler boats were sold with an option for only rigging to be pre-installed, and several brands of rigging were available. This evolved into offering Boston Whaler boats with rigging for Mercury engines, with an option to delete this, but no longer the option for other brands of engines to be pre-rigged. As I recall, the credit for deleting Mercury pre-rigging soon became very small or perhaps even a negative credit, that is, a dealer had to pay more for a boat not pre-rigged than for one pre-rigged with Mercury. From the dealer perspective, these moves were all strong disincentives to selling a Boston Whaler boat with any engine other than a Mercury.
Also during this time there was a lot of change in the dealer representation of Boston Whaler, and many long time Boston Whaler dealers who were not also Mercury outboard engine dealers were eliminated. The Boston Whaler boat brand line was typically shifted to a dealer that had been selling Mercury outboards, and often a dealer selling SeaRay boats, too. If a Boston Whaler dealer was a Yamaha outboard dealer, and did not also carry Mercury, they tended to be forced out of the Boston Whaler boat line.
With some of the Brunswick boat brands, particularly the aluminum boat lines, the Mercury engines were not a very good fit. To get a VERADO engine that weighed over 700-lbs on the transom of an 18-foot aluminum fishing boat required the boat builder to make substantial changes to the boat transom design. These aluminum boat transoms had to be strengthened with added knee bracing or thicker plywood in order to be able to handle the weight of the VERADO engine.
A further problem is the difficulty for any dealer, even one already selling Mercury, to become qualified to install or service the VERADO. Mercury requires its dealers to purchase specialized diagnostic equipment and to send their technicians to specialized training in order to be qualified and certified to install or work on the VERADO. This represents a significant cost to a dealer.
Since a lot of these changes were occurring during the c.2008 to c.2012 very deep decline in recreational boat and engine sales, dealers were not able to absorb these costs. At some point, Brunswick realized that it would be better to keep its existing dealers of these aluminum boat lines and sell some boats, even if they did not force the mandatory tie-in sale of a Mercury engine with each boat sold.
These are the reasons why you will see that there are some Brunswick boat brands that are being sold today without a mandatory tie-in sale of a Mercury outboard engine, but, if history is any guide, and as we have seen in Boston Whaler's history, it should be expected that Brunswick will probably slowly transition to policies that will make it more difficult for its dealers to be able to sell Brunswick boats without a Mercury engine.
frontier posted 06-27-2014 10:21 AM ET (US)
Very interesting about Brunswick's Harris-Kayot offering Honda as a factory option besides Mercury.
Why not give Boston Whaler buyers an option of power?
A Yamaha or Honda option would be very welcome by most new Whaler buyers and sales would skyrocket.
My guess is the high quality image of Boston Whaler is being used to bolster the 'average' quality image of Mercury outboards.
tedious posted 06-27-2014 01:37 PM ET (US)
In a way that's true. It's simply about maximizing profit. By tying the sale of the unwanted Mercury with the coveted Whaler, Brunswick ends up with more money in their pockets.
In allowing other motors on Whalers, Brunswick would lose more in motor sales than they'd gain in boat sales. You can be sure they have this figured out to the penny.

Hop to:

Contact Us | RETURN to ContinuousWave Top Page

Powered by: Ultimate Bulletin Board, Freeware Version 2000
Purchase our Licensed Version- which adds many more features!
© Infopop Corporation (formerly Madrona Park, Inc.), 1998 - 2000.

Author	Topic: Mandatory Tie-In Sale of Mercury with Whaler
jimh	posted 06-25-2014 02:08 PM ET (US) This topic became a long sidebar in another discussion. The many postings are now moved to their own thread.
martyn1075	posted 06-23-2014 06:23 PM ET (US) quote: "I don't think BRP is going to give you one, after you've said that." BRP wont give you one, and Whaler won't allow you one. Catch-22!
djahncke	posted 06-24-2014 07:11 AM ET (US) Martyn, I have Evinrude motors on all five of my whalers. Boston Whaler didn't stop me. It isn't that Whaler won't allow it, they just won't deliver a new one without a Mercury on it.
masbama	posted 06-24-2014 10:39 AM ET (US) I just think they're gonna have to have a 'classic' white motor for us Whaler folks to be happy.
martyn1075	posted 06-24-2014 11:31 AM ET (US) Don were your ETEC's on all brand new Whalers or used?
djahncke	posted 06-24-2014 02:09 PM ET (US) Martyn, I only purchased one of my Whalers new (I couldn't afford my fleet if I had to purchase them all new) and that one did come with an Evinrude. And my 25WA is the only one that I have changed from another brand to Evinrude (Yamaha to Evinrude). My point is that Boston Whaler doesn't allow or disallow you to have any type of motor on a boat that you own, there is no way they could do that legally. But they now bundle a black motor with each new whaler.
SJUAE	posted 06-24-2014 03:16 PM ET (US) Martyn I do not see any Mercury here on this obviously new Outrage 220: http://i707.photobucket.com/albums/ww76/SJUAE/220/220stern.jpg~original But us overseas chaps do not have it all our way we do pay a premium being outside USA on BW's and boats generally compared to US This stock model with very few options is around 80k USD (no tax to pay)with no engine(s)or T-Top, cushions etc but it does have a trailer. The only good new is our outboards usually come complete with rigging and prop etc in the box from Evinrude. My old Outrage 210 was the same (ie blank hull) and I added a 200 ETEC Regards Steve
martyn1075	posted 06-24-2014 06:18 PM ET (US) Good to hear, a few years back I was pricing out a new 205 conquest with a representative of the Whaler dealer in our area. I requested a Honda instead of the Mercury that was on there and I was told that wouldn't be possible. It would be sold with the motor that was shipped. I had a big conversation about it with him, but I was pretty much pulling at teeth. Instead of trying to make it work out I received the question why would you want to do that? Honda? why? this Optimax is far better choice. It got complicated so I walked. I have heard this before about dealers only selling you a Whaler with a Mercury. I am from Canada and maybe that has something to do with it as perhaps the rules are changed for us. Wouldn't be the first time.
jimh	posted 06-24-2014 08:45 PM ET (US) New Boston Whaler boats will continue to sold with a mandatory tie-in sale of a Mercury outboard in the USA.
martyn1075	posted 06-25-2014 12:02 AM ET (US) Hold on here, I'm confused now Jim says that boston whaler is mandatory to buy mercury with whaler yet others above say no that you can still purchase one without to put on a Etec.. I always understood that you could not purchase a whaler without a mercury which is why I made the comment about the Etec won't give you one and whaler won't allow/sell you one. What is it??
martyn1075	posted 06-25-2014 12:05 AM ET (US) Hold on here, I'm confused now Jim says that boston whaler is mandatory to buy mercury with whaler yet others above say no that you can still purchase one without to put on a Etec.. I always understood that you could not purchase a whaler without a mercury which is why I made the comment about the Etec won't give you one and whaler won't allow/sell you one. What is it??
Peter	posted 06-25-2014 07:15 AM ET (US) Martyn -- Europe and other foreign countries may have anti-competition laws that are more strict than in the U.S. If not more strict, then it may be that there isn't as much competition over there and the application of their anti-competition laws strict is such that Whaler cannot do the mandatory bundled sales that Whaler is able to get away with in North America without violating the foreign countries anti-competition laws. Local laws and regulations have a huge influence on how commerce is conducted locally. The EPA regulations of emissions of outboard motors is but one example.
K Albus	posted 06-25-2014 08:37 AM ET (US) I believe Martyn is confused by Don Jahncke's comments. I think I can clear up the confusion. Of Don's five Whalers, only one was purchased new. I believe that is a Dauntless 17, which Don purchased new before Whaler instituted its mandatory tie-in with Mercury motors. Since the mandatory tie-in did not exist at that time, the dealership where Don bought the Dauntless 17 was able to equip the boat with an Evinrude motor. Don also owns four other Whalers, none of which are powered by Mercury motors. All of those boats were purchased used, and thus could be powered with any brand of motor. I'm not certain of the model years for Don's four additional Whalers, but I believe all of them pre-date the mandatory Mercury tie-in which was instituted by Whaler in approximately 2000. Thus, it is quite possible that none of Don's boats were ever powered by a Mercury motor. Martyn, if you buy a new Whaler in the United States, it will be powered by a Mercury motor. What Don is saying in his posts is that while Whaler may require you to purchase a Mercury motor, Whaler can't prevent you from repowering with an Evinrude motor. It will cost you, however.
Ferdinando	posted 06-25-2014 08:54 AM ET (US) Tell me about it. It cost me $6 grand to repower my 2008 190 a year after I purchased it, but getting rid of the Merc and putting on an E-Tec is "priceless".
Jefecinco	posted 06-25-2014 10:55 AM ET (US) There is a "work around" if you can find a willing and capable dealer. Of course there is a price but it should certainly be less than Fred's cost. In my case the cost was slight as my dealer was Killinger Marine in Pensacola, FL which was an excellent dealer which sold multiple lines one of which was Boston Whaler. Unfortunately Killinger eventually sold out to MarineMax as did many Boston Whaler dealers in the 90s and 2000s. I was told by the service manager that Killinger was told that he could sell or they would open another location and compete directly with him in the SeaRay and Boston Whaler lines The deal was for a Dauntless 16 to be delivered with an Evinrude 115 HP engine. Killinger simply removed the Mercury 90 on the Dauntless and installed the Evinrude before delivery. I'm sure the Mercury ended up on another Killinger boat and was sold at retail as it had zero hours of use. Butch
Phil T	posted 06-25-2014 12:43 PM ET (US) By going through CPG, you can purchase a whaler hull with any engine you want: http://www.brunswickcgp.com/Page.aspx/pageId/154934/page.aspx It will cost ya.
SC Joe	posted 06-25-2014 02:18 PM ET (US) Not too long ago, in California you could buy a few model Whalers with no engine as the spec'd Mercurys (Optimax's?) would not meet California's emission requirements. I don't know if Mercury has fixed this by using different engines that do meet the California specs.
martyn1075	posted 06-25-2014 03:11 PM ET (US) Interesting it does appear that the Optimax line is shrinking a bit more and more, and if they are still hanging around, the Whalers that are shipped all have four strokes on them. If you want an upgrade motor its probably the "new" 150 Four Stroke The 2013 190 Outrage ships with a 150 Verado funny enough but you can option out for a new 150 Fourstroke. The 190 Montauk has a 115 four stroke and one can upgrade to the new 150 Four stroke. My point is Whaler is not really giving you the option for a two stroke Optimax 2 star engine it would probably create a loop hole for them to lose out in a tie in sale with a bare hull sold in California and other areas as well. Yes of course the market is mostly four stroke so we can assume that is big part of it as well, but is it safe to say they do not want Whalers sold or the potential to be sold without a Mercury on the back? Martyn
bluewaterpirate	posted 06-25-2014 07:57 PM ET (US) The 225 Optimax has been three star rated for some time just re powered my Ventura with one. http://s676.photobucket.com/user/bluewaterpirate/media/ Optimax%20225%202014/IMG_8076.jpg.html Tom
SC Joe	posted 06-26-2014 01:21 PM ET (US) Tom, you may very well be correct. I did a short google search that pointed me back here: http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/021969.html And it appears it was a 2 star certified Verado issue that couldn't be sold in CA. I don't know if that certification has been updated since then. California folks: Can you buy a new Whaler with no engine?
jimh	posted 06-26-2014 05:36 PM ET (US) There is generally no problem for Brunswick's Mercury outboard engines of the OptiMax line to meet c.2012 EPA compliance or "Three-Star" emission. In fact, it is only by selling a lot of compliant engines like the OptiMax that Brunswick can sell non-Three Star engines like their VERADO engines in the USA. The EPA works on a fleet average basis, so if your fleet of engines sold across the USA includes a lot of compliant engines you make room in your fleet average emission for a portion of that fleet to consist of non-compliant engines like VERADO Two-Star rated engines. Also, the VERADO, while rated as Two-Stars should probably be thought of as a 2.8-Star engine, that is, its emission levels are not very far away from meeting Three-Star. As a result, they do not pull down the fleet average very far, so they are generally not constrained (as far as I know) in their sales by their emission ratings. I think Homeland Security and other government maritime agencies are probably the biggest customers, and who knows if those engines have to comply with any regulations. I don't know how the regulators work in California. There may be a ban on certain lakes for anything less than Three-Star. I don't know if for total sales in California they work on a fleet average basis or if they insist on every engine sold meeting their Three-Star level. Maybe they have a fleet average for engine sold in California. Boston Whaler has not offered any OptiMax engines as options for many years now. As far as I know--which is based on face to face discussion about this with senior Whaler people--the principal reason for not offering OptiMax was the generally very low percentage of buyers selecting that option. Rather than maintain an option that was only selected by a few percent of customers, Whaler just decided to simplify their inventory and rigging and not offer OptiMax. As far as I know it was more the customers telling Whaler what they wanted than Whaler telling the customers what they had to take.
GSH	posted 06-27-2014 02:03 AM ET (US) Friday trivia: Here in Finland you can currently order any Whaler model on the price list as ”Delete engine”, please see: http://powerproducts.wihuri.fi/sites/default/files/BW%20Hinnasto%202014. pdf However, if the real prices are anything like those on the official pricelist, ordering a new Whaler without Mercury power does not seem like a very good deal. Still, the choice is there. Br, Seb
Hoosier	posted 06-27-2014 09:45 AM ET (US) Is "Mercury Only" a Whaler policy or is it being forced on them by Brunswick?
Hoosier	posted 06-27-2014 09:50 AM ET (US) Hmmm.... I just checked the Harris-Kayot site since their plant is here in Fort Wayne and they offer two engine choices, Mercury and Honda. So Brunswick is allowing them some flexibility.
jimh	posted 06-27-2014 10:17 AM ET (US) Brunswick would probably like to be able to enforce a mandatory tie-in sale of a Mercury engine with all of their boat brands, but they have found a lot of resistance to that from the dealers and customers of some of their other brands. As a result, on some Brunswick boat brands the dealers can obtain boats without a Mercury engine pre-installed on the transom. The situation with some of these other Brunswick boat brands is analogous to the situation of Boston Whaler when it was first taken over by Brunswick. Initially the Boston Whaler boats were sold with an option for only rigging to be pre-installed, and several brands of rigging were available. This evolved into offering Boston Whaler boats with rigging for Mercury engines, with an option to delete this, but no longer the option for other brands of engines to be pre-rigged. As I recall, the credit for deleting Mercury pre-rigging soon became very small or perhaps even a negative credit, that is, a dealer had to pay more for a boat not pre-rigged than for one pre-rigged with Mercury. From the dealer perspective, these moves were all strong disincentives to selling a Boston Whaler boat with any engine other than a Mercury. Also during this time there was a lot of change in the dealer representation of Boston Whaler, and many long time Boston Whaler dealers who were not also Mercury outboard engine dealers were eliminated. The Boston Whaler boat brand line was typically shifted to a dealer that had been selling Mercury outboards, and often a dealer selling SeaRay boats, too. If a Boston Whaler dealer was a Yamaha outboard dealer, and did not also carry Mercury, they tended to be forced out of the Boston Whaler boat line. With some of the Brunswick boat brands, particularly the aluminum boat lines, the Mercury engines were not a very good fit. To get a VERADO engine that weighed over 700-lbs on the transom of an 18-foot aluminum fishing boat required the boat builder to make substantial changes to the boat transom design. These aluminum boat transoms had to be strengthened with added knee bracing or thicker plywood in order to be able to handle the weight of the VERADO engine. A further problem is the difficulty for any dealer, even one already selling Mercury, to become qualified to install or service the VERADO. Mercury requires its dealers to purchase specialized diagnostic equipment and to send their technicians to specialized training in order to be qualified and certified to install or work on the VERADO. This represents a significant cost to a dealer. Since a lot of these changes were occurring during the c.2008 to c.2012 very deep decline in recreational boat and engine sales, dealers were not able to absorb these costs. At some point, Brunswick realized that it would be better to keep its existing dealers of these aluminum boat lines and sell some boats, even if they did not force the mandatory tie-in sale of a Mercury engine with each boat sold. These are the reasons why you will see that there are some Brunswick boat brands that are being sold today without a mandatory tie-in sale of a Mercury outboard engine, but, if history is any guide, and as we have seen in Boston Whaler's history, it should be expected that Brunswick will probably slowly transition to policies that will make it more difficult for its dealers to be able to sell Brunswick boats without a Mercury engine.
frontier	posted 06-27-2014 10:21 AM ET (US) Very interesting about Brunswick's Harris-Kayot offering Honda as a factory option besides Mercury. Why not give Boston Whaler buyers an option of power? A Yamaha or Honda option would be very welcome by most new Whaler buyers and sales would skyrocket. My guess is the high quality image of Boston Whaler is being used to bolster the 'average' quality image of Mercury outboards.
tedious	posted 06-27-2014 01:37 PM ET (US) In a way that's true. It's simply about maximizing profit. By tying the sale of the unwanted Mercury with the coveted Whaler, Brunswick ends up with more money in their pockets. In allowing other motors on Whalers, Brunswick would lose more in motor sales than they'd gain in boat sales. You can be sure they have this figured out to the penny.