Shopping for Mercruiser parts can be tough at times. The local shops even Mercury themselves aren’t available at optimum hours and the cost can be really high as no substitutions can be made.

A few things that may help the situation include taking a different approach and looking at different routes where parts may be available.

I remember my first boat I owned with a Mercruiser motor. I was young and couldn’t understand how they could pull a motor from a car and put it in a boat. Well come to find out that wasn’t the case. The starter went bad and I needed a replacement. I thought it would be easy to find replacement parts and didn’t think I needed to go to a shop that had Mercruiser stuff just plain parts. Boy was I wrong, I shopped all over the place and no one carries Mercruiser parts anywhere.

So I did end up buying that starter but learned the hard way even the shops that may have had it, they were not open let alone on a Saturday or late in the day after I got off of work. The internet wasn’t available back then and my only way to get parts was to keep talking with others in the same situation. This was definitely something I wasn’t use to and I also was surprised to learn that the starter wasn’t just any starter but a starter designed just for the marine environment.

So when I was shopping I asked around about replacing that old Mercruiser starter with just a plain auto starter and the response wasn’t good. I learned quickly about fires on boats and what could happen. No one really ever told me about things like blowers for bilge or ignition protected parts as I had only worked on cars growing up.

So here we are today and running into the same situation. Not much has changed in that part of the industry but this I know for sure. Mercruiser parts are available over the internet and they are significantly lower priced than others. The online shops are selling items at lower prices across the board. The low overhead associated with an online shop has got to be a factor here but also the efficient operation of filling inventories. Shopping over the internet is booming and the marine industry is no stranger.

So if you need Mercruiser parts and you’re not sure where to turn take a look online. Save yourself some trouble and search wisely. And always under no circumstances settle for a part substitution that is not designed just for a Mercruiser engine.