There are lots of questions regarding engine back orders today.
With the dealers seeing that orders are out to mid 2022, questions are growing as to when “my” engine is coming in. We order engines out 12-14 months in advance, thus it’s not as if we order “your” engine, we have hundreds on order annually.
Often mid to small dealerships are ordering ‘your’ engine, though we are not. Today when a dealership that doesn’t have an engine on order, they place an order, that anticipated receipt date in the Merc system extends to mid 2022.
Honestly we have no idea the number of engines Mercury has on order, though they are taking care of those which have their orders in. It’s easy to see that a boat company with 80, 90 or 100% Mercury engine needs would have a thousand engines on order annually, or Mercury would forecast the needs for that customer way out beyond your one engine.
As for USA Yamaha Marine, their engine availability will also instantly change when the freighter arrives in port with hundreds or thousands of engines. They will almost instantly go from famine to too many engines in this vicious cycle. Just as happened over three years ago with Yamaha.
Today’s marine user needs are up around 35% to 50%, during a pandemic that has reduced existing production and supply capability further. Those the gap between availability and shortage has grown. This is true for everything from a freezer to a 2×4.
The outdoor market has grown exponentially when travel and gatherings ended and projections are for it to extend perhaps 5 years. The capacity of supply was set at the market level pre-CoVid and market demand growth has more than complicated our lives.
For example our fiberglass allocation is now 70% of the last 6 months, thus we find ourselves scrambling to buy what we find, sometimes in your uncle Joe’s garages even. We have bought fiberglass we use from sources where some hobbyist dreamed of a project and it was kept secure for that time never yet to come. Our injection foam is similar, as is seat foam, we are allocated less than we need, thus we substitute other foam products where we can and extend life of the supply where we can’t.
Raw materials are short for everyone and for us labor is also our most critical need. Everything is short now and we are managing. For us engines are a component part in that critical need position. There are so many others.
.
