FYI, I'm currently doing the 3-year service on my 9-year old motor. (First 2 services were done by dealer since it was under warranty.) First thing I did after dropping the lower unit was take it to the dealer to have them do the vacuum and pressure checks. (There are 2 seals on both prop and drive shafts, one facing in to keep the oil in and the other facing out keep the water out, so both vacuum and pressure tests are required to check both seals.)
Although the gear oil looked fine with no sign of water, they called this morning and said that the upper seals were leaking, so I'll replace 'em before installing the new WP! I don't think the upper seals see quite as much pressure as the lower ones, making them less critical, but if I hadn't had this test done, I'd probably be looking at either loss of oil or water intrusion in the fresh gear lube sometime in the next 3 years! (Although BRP only requires a gear oil change every 3 years or 300 hours, I change it every 100 hours on the advice of a good mechanic . . . he said the E-TECs develop so much more torque than older motors that the pinon gear load is also much higher, so he felt that, even though BRP's new HPF Pro gear oil is the best available, a more frequent oil change was cheap insurance. I think that's good advice!
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