Never do business with Doug Russel Marine!!
 

A good friend of mine has a 13 MB sports tomcat that the motor went bad..He found Doug Russel Marine online and after some discussion they sold him a replacement motor and he sent them his old motor for a core charge. Long story short they never paid him for his core and they sold him a motor that will only work in a MasterCraft due the can bus wiring system. His gauges do not work and the boat only runs for a short period of time then dumps raw fuel in the water and shuts off. He's been going back and forth with them for two years to make it right and they never have. We are talking about a 10 thousand dollar engine purchase here. I recommend every stay away from Doug Russel!

There's too much stupid **** going on here to even make sense of it.

Agree. If its a motor for a MC then it has to be an indmar. As thats what they ran prior to Ilmor and Ilmor's only go in MC.

So we are taking this started in 2014 on a 2013 model. That if it had an indmar motor would have had a 3 year warranty in 2013.

So a motor failure should have been covered under warranty by his MB dealer. Something doesn't seem to compute here.

Did Texas Liquidators or LON install this engine?????? I smell an epic thread coming!!

All kinds of WTF going on here.

My friend is the third owner of the MB, no warranty was available. All this started in 2015. His MB had the indmar 6.0 in it. Doug Russel sold him what he was told was a new as in current year 6.0 and this motor would be warrantied, but it was actually a 6.0 for a 2009 MC and no warranty. After he's discussed it with indmar they have told him that motor can not be made to work in an MB because of the can bus system used by MC.

Could he not have swapped over the loom from the old motor?

Indmar told him unless a custom ECU and wiring was done that it would never work in his boat.

I guess not. Ly6 vs l96

3 owners within the first 2 years, sounds like this boat had a great start. Indmar warranty is transferable!!!! Always has been, theres a cost but its transferable.

Who installed the motor? They are as much at fault as the guy who sold him the wrong motor. Most engine people, even marine are tow boat is a tow boat type of people. The guy knew he needed an Indmar tow sports 6.0 liter and he had one. Probably didn't even know there was options within the indmar 6.0 liter line. The installer should have seen the ECM and wiring was wrong right away. How are you going to tell the customer their boat is ready when nothing plugs up? He should have refused it right then.

This stinks of people dropping the ball from one end to the other. Not saying the engine seller isn't wrong, but he sure isn't the Lone Ranger.

Is there no money in the boat business? So many terrible dealers. If I had the cash I'd open one just based on the service I'd provide. Of course I could learn there's a reason they all seem to suck too. All the shops remind me of grease monkeys, no real mechanics just enthusiasts making min wage.

The boat biz will make you a sure fire millionaire.........................as long as you have a billion to get started :p

I wonder if all the electronics and plugs look the same on both engines . Sometimes the computer is designed for certain applications and cant be reprogrammed for different configurations due to they way they read data from sensors and such from different years and sometimes they are ,married to a serial number in the rest of the vehicles electronics and wont talk to them .Like trying to switch a gauge cluster in a newer car will not work . I would think if the engine installed and plugged into all the stock harnesses it could be made to play nice with the MB's electronics . What I don't get is why wasn't this a bare long block and everything removed from original engine and placed on the new or reman long block . Ive never seen anyone change out the engine and all the electronics that way . Where is the CORE ? If in fact he was told it was compatible and its not then the seller of the engine in on the hook to get the boat owner what was paid for . This sounds like a real mess . Would love to hear and actual time line run down of what happened .

Who did the install? The marina or your buddy?

I would think you could swap,over all the mechanicals and keep the old electronics. Hell I've done this in cars. Put a 3L engine into a car that had a 2.5L, just used all the "dumb" parts, and it worked fine.

harnesses could likely be patched together. still have an ecu issue I would think.

Update.The power of the internet works wonder..Doug Russel contacted my buddy today and said they are going to rebuild his old motor and send it back to him and have it installed in his boat. Hopefully this works out as this has been nothing but aggravation for my friend. To answer some of the questions, the engine was installed by the local MC dealer..The plugs match up but the ECU does not read the same and the gauges on the boat do not work properly and the engine eventually floods itself with fuel and shuts off.

WTF? An MC Dealer didn't know that the engine wouldn't work? There is a whole lot of stupid going on here.

Yes there is....

And awesomely after only 16 posts on a wake boarding website (not a site usually frequented by an engine builders customer) the engine builder has snapped to out of fear and and is ready to do what he has refused to do for 2 years. This all seems really odd. More to this story for sure.

To add to the fun the OP isn't even the injured party, but rather just a "friend".....

Somebody's always got something to say :D actually we contacted the better business bureau, left a bad review on their Facebook page and Google, and mention of an attorney seemed to be some motivation.

So they have been sitting on a core engine for 2 years? someone is telling a story here.

They were sent his core engine when the new engine was installed.yes they've had it all this time.

Still makes no sense why it was replaced that way . Long block should have been removed and rebuilt/replaced and all the stock sensors and accessories from the original engine reinstalled .

I agree with Rick

Wakeworld people defend the business owner end at all costs to the consumer every time. A business could take 150K for a boat and kick the customer out the door without letting them take their boat and people on here would blame the boat customer for not making sure the boat was connected to their vehicle before they wrote the check.

I won't argue that is sometimes the case on here.

But come on. Its not even the guy it happened to. Everything points to multiple mistakes and misses by more than just the engine seller. Then on top of it the OP keeps saying "we did" like its him and his wife, yet claims it happened to a friend. Personally I don't make BBB complaints for friends, I don't post friends complaints on Internet forums, and I certainly don't threaten "attorney" to a business on my friends behalf.

Something just seems really odd here. Seems more like someone had an axe to grind with the company more than an actual problem the way its said to have went. The MC dealer that supposedly installed the motor should certainly be half or more at fault here. They should have short blocked or at the most long blocked the thing with parts changed over. No need for new electronics and for sure no need for a new 100% complete new motor. Yet they aren't called out on here or even mentioned as at all at fault.

Agreed. A long block was all that was needed.

"dumps raw fuel in the water". I was kind of wondering how that happens

You're you and I'm me. He's a very good friend of mine, like a brother in my eyes. I've tried to help him every step of the way. I've made phone calls on his behalf when they wouldn't return his calls. I've sent emails and made contacts that needed to be made. When there's something I can do then I do it. The dealer that installed the motor is not on blast because they've worked with us to try to correct the problem and they've also contact the dealer that sold us the motor with no luck. He initially looked for a short block and Doug Russel Marine recommended he go ahead and buy a whole new crate motor so he did. He simply wanted his boat back on the water. I merely wanted to warn people about the trouble he has went through with all this, I could care less whether you agree or disagree with how it was handled.

Don't get it twisted it took some really rookie mistakes to not reference the serial number or even notice they were completely different engines. Unless I missed where they were told to install a different engine?

Could careless who agrees or disagrees yet gets on ww to write thesis....

Jesus, the amount of crap this guys is getting on here is ridiculous. As for the marina itself, having grown up in the area, knowing the industry, and knowing a good amount of people who have had interactions with this marina, I can absolutely back up his claim regarding this marina. This is not nearly the first time I've heard of crazy things like this happening there. It's not a tournament boat dealer, but they do a lot of motor sales. They've been around a long time, so they've been doing something right, but I will say that I've heard far more negative stories than I have positive.

I think I mentioned it earlier some engines are identical as far as appearance but the electronics are programmed specifically for certain applications . It could be the engine was identical but never going to play nice with any boat other then the one it came from .

It's sloppy due diligence to swap a ly6 for a l96 especially when indmar tries to simplify it by providing their own serial numbers on everything. A certified technician has most certainly been told to cross reference these numbers to ensure he's using the correct parts, or in this case a complete engine. Assumptions are rookie mistakes easily avoided.

See that is where you are wrong......

Read the OP's messages. ONLY mistake was the engine seller. Don't question that or you will be ridiculous!!!!!

This post is another great example of you can post WHATEVER you want on the internet and someone is going to believe you without question.

Those of us that have ACTUALLY been around this stuff for a long time and in the industries realize many people made mistakes in this deal if it went down at all like the poster says. It wouldn't just be the engine seller. Not saying he wouldn't be in the wrong, but he wouldn't be alone in blame.

Should've been sent back immediately by the MC dealer and sold a correct long block by the MC dealer. Oops. The dealer is poorly managed.

My boat did that once and I rebuilt the carb.

If i'm buying an engine from a dealer i expect them to know the ins and outs of compatibility PERIOD. They're the DEALER for a reason, they should have knowledge and experience to know what they're selling works with who they're selling it to. Making sure its a proper fit for the application of their customer. I can't think of any other business where a customer would provide the Dealer they're buying something from compatibility knowledge as well. Aside from year make model and basic info the dealer needs to take that and find the proper fit or send them down the road to someone who can.. We might as well all be dealers and sell anything and everything to anyone if all you do is take peoples money and leave it up to them... Theres a reason people have specific careers in specific industries- you can't be an expert in everything.. The problem with this scenario and these comments above is that we're all so used to getting crap service and people NOT doing their jobs that people are actually defending this bs as though its normal

agreed