It’s the old story of bad news travels fast and everyone has a horror story they’ve heard. How so and so’s outboard lunched itself after only 6 months or 100 hours etc etc.

Outboard Brands Available

Evinrude

Honda

Mercury

Suzuki

Yamaha

The reality is that all outboard brands have a problem occasionally, more often for new model lines.

The questions I ask when I hear these stories are:

· How were you looked after while your outboard was being repaired?

· Did they fix your outboard in a timely fashion?

· Did they keep you informed as to progress and the cause of your outboard’s problem?

· Did they find the cause of the outboard’s problem and make sure it can’t happen again?

Outboard Configurations Available

In Board

Twin Rig

And most importantly:

· Did they come to the party for the costs if your outboards was under warranty?

One thing to make sure of is that the motors have been fitted to the manufacturer’s requirements, e.g. a minimum battery size is usually specified and I have heard of claims being denied due to this (any excuse in the current economic climate).

Outboard Horse Power Available

From 30 HP

To 300HP

The Most Important Decision Factor For People Seems To Be Fuel Consumption.

It is a common misconception that Four strokes (FS) use a lot less fuel than Two strokes, than a carburetted Two stroke(CTS) yes, but compared to a Direct injection Two stroke(DITS) NO. ( DITS being Mercury Optimax, Evinrude E-Tec, Yamaha HPDI).

Outboard Fuel Setups Available

Diesel

Petrol

Two stroke

Four stroke

Carburated

Direct injection

EFI

There is a mountain of testing data out there and advertising campaigns proving (depending on who did the testing) that they are all better than the competition. Reality, they are all within a knats whisker of each other for fuel consumption. What is far more critical is the set up, correct engine height and the correct propeller for the hull and its application, have far more impact on fuel consumption than the brand of motor you choose.

One thing that may need more consideration is the weight of the motor for a given horsepower. I know some of our boat models trim much better when the weight on the transom is kept down. Again, a boat that has a lot of extra motor weight will probably use a lot more fuel regardless of what the sales brochure tells you. Boats with an engine pod are more susceptible to transom weight than when the motor is directly on the transom too.

I’m not talking about a little bit of weight difference here. If you do your homework you’ll find engine blocks are shared over a horsepower range, some motors will be high power for a small block (weight) while others can be lower power from a large block, 175hp is a good example, some share 135/150/175 block while others share 175/200/225 block, this can make for an engine weight difference of more than 20% in some cases.

The Next Thing to Compare Is Price and the Fuel Savings

I’m talking about the jump between CTS to DITS to FS. A salesman will tell you it’s worth spending the extra money to go to the fuel efficient model they sell because it will pay for itself in fuel savings (and probably has a higher commission), usually without any idea of how much you even use your boat. So let’s just look at that for a minute.

Using current 90hp RRP, an assumption that the CTS motor is using a tote tank an hour (25L) and DITS, FS use roughly two thirds less, (I don’t know exactly how accurate those figures are, it’s just as an example) The average boaties engine run time per year of 15hrs. Yes 15hrs (remember this is engine run time not boat being used time). I have used a rate $1.70 per litre for fuel for the calculations below.

CTS average RRP $12,000. CTS will use about 25 litres per hour. For 15 hours running time per year it will cost you $637.50.

25Litres/hour X $1.70 X 15hours = $637.50

DITS average RRP $17,000 and FS average RRP $19,200. They will use about 8.33 litres per hour. For 15 hours running time per year it will cost you $212.50.

8.33Litres/hour X $1.70 X 15hrs = $212.50 per year

	Difference to upgrade	Difference in fuel saving	Years to realise fuel savings
DITS	$5000	$425	$5000/$425=11.76yrs
FS	$7200	$425	$7200/$425=16.95yrs

Add to this that FS and DITS are dearer to service but the extra oil the CTS uses will probably even it out.

Of course not everyone only does 15hrs a year, so let say you want to see a return in 5yrs. How much boating would you have to do?

CTS uses 25Litre/hour X $1.70= $42.5 per hour

DITS and FS use 8.33litre/hour X $1.70= $14.16 per hour

CTS Vs DITS = Save $5,000 over 5 years at a rate of $1,000 per year

The calculation is: Saving per hour X hrs / yr used = $1,000

Thus…

$42.5 - $14.16 X hrs/yr = $1000

Simplifies to

$28.34 X hrs/yr = $1000

Thus, the number of hours per year to be even is

$1000 / $28.34 = 35 hrs per year

CTS Vs FS = Save $7,200 over 5 years at a rate of $1,440 per year

Following the same logic as above the number of hours per year is:

$1440 / 28.34 = 51 hrs per year.

In Summary

	Cost to upgrade	Years for return	Fuel saving required per year	Running time
DITS	$5000.00	5	$1000	35 hours per year
FS	$7200.00	5	$1440	51 hours per year*

*That is the equivalent of taking the boat 1 hour from the ramp every other weekend of the year! (even in winter when the weather is crap!!)

Did that surprise anyone?

I have written the examples out in full so you can try other examples yourselves.

So, fuel consumption is not the be all and end all of decision making of course.

Briefly, here are a couple more things to consider before purchasing.

No two stroke likes to idle along forever. A DITS will do it for a couple of full days of game fishing but if you do a lot, like 10-13 hours a day 3 or more times a week in season then a four stroke is probably a better option.

CTS do smoke a lot more than DITS and FS and on hardtop boats travelling along the venturi effect of the hardtop tends to suck the fumes into the cabin (which can make people sea sick).

FS are the quietest with some DITS not being too far behind. But the FS tend to be the heavier for any given horsepower, although the gaps are closing.

Lastly, How far away is the nearest service agent?

It’s only once a year (or three years in some cases) but you will still curse yourself if you have to drive two hours past your nearest dealer to get to the one that has to service your motor so the warranty stays valid.

Well that’s me,

Hope you found this to be reasonably unbiased information, if it was a help please let me know, flick us an E-mail at marco.boats@xtra.co.nz and let me know what was helpful or to ask another question if you like.

Remember before purchasing be informed, do some homework and who knows you may even be able to tell the difference between a sales man looking after themselves and one looking after you.

Thanks again

Dayne.

The information contained on this webpage is a guide only, it is the opinion of the writer and some parts contained may not be factual, any facts or figures quoted were either made up or accurate at the time of writing.

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