Yeah. All kinds of opinions about outboards.

Until recently, it appears that Yamaha was about as good as you could find. The newer motors aren't nearly as tough as the 10 year old ones.

On the down side, those older motors were designed to give at least 3,000 running hours of power head life. (My 150GT passed that a long time ago.) The new motors have traded life expectancy for technology and that 3,000 has been creeping lower. The powerheads on some of the 2012 motors are designed as "used up" at 800 hours.

Yikes!

 

Well, I still believe that your outboard will only be as good as you treat it. I have said buying second hand is always risky as you dont know how the PO treated it. One thing we have going for us as bass fishermen as we dont put alot of hours on an outboard in a hurry.. We can spend 4-5 days in a row fishing hardcore with prefishing and tournament time and maybe get 5-6 hours of time on the motor

 

Actually, I'm scared to death to buy a used bass boat. I seldom run mine wide open, maybe just for 30 seconds towards the end of the day to loosen her up. There's a lot of big motors that have spent half their running hours at full throttle. That wears an awful lot of parts!

 

So we're 3 pages in, and I'm the only one who read the thread title as "Motorboatin' Question"?

 

I have to say out of all the guys I have fished with over the last 3 years in the BWS. Only one time we was wide open and that was to make weigh in we had got on some fish very late and was tring to upgrade and stayed about 5 mins to long so it was wide open back to the ramp.

 

Dont need any help with Motorboatin... I just cant do it as long as I used too

 

On the Merc vs. OMC debate, and OMC being better in the 150 and under hp range....

Ever seen two very similar boats one with a 50hp 4-cylinder Mercury, and one with the "Big twin" 50hp Evinrude/Johnson?...........The Mercury 50 will run circles around the OMC 50.

I still feel OMC's are more user friendly and a little cheaper on parts, but you will always be eating the wake of a Mercury OB.