You could try to get some assistance from Lewmar, but I'm not optimistic. All the extra costs are due to their quality control, but if they are dragging their feet on replacing the motor, it will be ten times harder to get them to cover any labor. But check their warranty. It might actually cover labor for some portion of the warranty, in which case they are obligated.
Fisheries is just a seller in the supply chain, so unless they somehow broke it, or sold you a defective return, they seem blameless.
I hate to say it, but all my recent experience with Lewmar has been awful. It has been limited to overhead hatches and overhead hatch screens/shades, but they are just junk. There's no other way to put it. Every hatch leaked, including replacements. The shades were constantly breaking and made of cheap flimsy plastic. I finally just dumped them and replaced with Manship and OceanAir which are vastly superior.
It's a bit radical, but consider simply returning the Lewmar as defective, and replacing with the Sleipner alternative that you were first considering. It's not inspiring that the Lewmar failed in the first place, and your replacement experience hasn't yielded any better impression of quality and durability. Consider cutting you losses and getting rid of the problem. If I have learned anything over the years, it's that stuff like this rarely gets better over time, and usually continues to disappoint. My nature is to hang on to something and work through the problems, but in past years have been quicker to dump something if it's a problem. Looking back, I have always been glad I did it. It's now my three-strike rule. I'll put up with two rounds of issues, tech support, defective parts, software updates, etc., but on the third issue, it's gone. This of course assumes there is an alternative, and that's not always the case. But in your situation, there is an alternative. This would delay you further now, but in the long run may improve your overall boat enjoyment.
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