Every manufactured part has a lifespan and a failure-in-time rate. The failures tend to occur very early in the life of the part (infant mortality) and late in the life of the part (just from being worn out). The middle of the lifespan tends to be very light on failures. If you plot the number of failures over time, the curve is shaped like the cross section of a bathtub and is therefore called the "bathtub curve". Unless there's some known issue with the pumps, you got unlucky with an early failure, sad to say. Hopefully it's an isolated issue.
I doubt Mercury would ever offer free towing in a standard warranty. Parts and labor would be typical.
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