When your in BIG tournaments there are factory support trailers there with engines and lower units. How is the support handed out for the anglers in the tournament if you know? I know there are blown engines and lower units that occur in most large tournaments. I don’t know who are how many but at least some are repaired by the factory support groups. These boats are ready to roll the following morning and placed back in the tournament competition. My question is who is privileged to these services on the spot and who if any pay for these services. Warranty work is an easy answer but I know for a fact it not all warranty work. I wish someone that actually knows would jump in here and tell us how this works. I can guess all day but I would like to hear some hard facts not some bs. We’re talking big money changing out these engines and lowers. Tell us how it works at a tournament if you actually know.

I’ve been curious to this as well

Most if not all are warranty repairs. If you roll up there with a 10 year old engine be prepared to pay dearly.

Well I'm no expert and def not a pro so you may take this as b.s. But most pros at that level have some kind of boat deal either with a manufacturer or their local dealer. Most get a new boat if not every year at least every other year so my best educated guess would be that 99% of those kind of repairs would be under warranty.

and most big pros have backup boats...

If you have a warranty they are willing to service what they can. If you have no warranty, it’s the same service, you just pay.

I had to sit in a line at the Mercury trailer at Ross Barnett. Waited for an hour, then left the truck/trailer and went to eat, shower, take a nap, then went back to get it at 1:30am.

They do the best they can to not be biased towards pro team guys or regular semi-pros.

It’s first in first out. Or at least it was.

nope

yep

Christie and Biffle were two of the bigger names I’ve seen at the trailer....desperate to get their boats fixed because it was their only boats. Christie got his lower replaced and Biffle borrowed a guides boat the next day, and another guys boat that didn’t make the 12 cut for Saturday.

I’m not naming names. I bought what people on this page would call the backup boat. The owner called it the camera boat. It’s that boat that you see sometimes parked off to the side when your watching bass fishing on tv. It’s one of his old tournament boat. It’s the oldest of three bass boats fully rigged. Those guys even have metal boats for river fishing ( jet and prop driven) and I don’t what else. It was time for his new boat so this one got pushed out of the nest to make room for the 2020. I just found out the hours on this engine today 510.2. He told me about this boat getting a replacement engine once and a lower unit once from the factory trailer at a tournament. He seemed reluctant to openly discuss the financial aspect on work done at the factory trailer. He did say it depends who you are and that he didn’t have to pay for the work on this one. This must have been out of warranty well I’m sure it was. That made me want to know even more who gets what when and where. That’s why I put it on here to see if someone would spill the beans on this subject. ( He only hauls one boat around to the tournaments ) ( This one I bought and his tournament boat are the same brand of boat actually all of them are the same brand )