Real world #'s on a 20' CC with a 140 4S Suzuki?

[Fr. Frank]

Ken, Denny is a person who tends to over-research things before offering his two cents. Because the information he found was similar to what dealers and reps offer doesn't mean he was simply parroting that data. You need to ask about what real data is available on a given topic. Give him the benefit of the doubt. I'd be willing to bet he spent hours and hours researching various motors before he bought his Etec.
Just as I spent four months researching before I bought my 90 Optimax.

Denny's one of the good guys.

[Keyscruz]

Father Frank hit it on the Head!!! Denny does very thorough research and his conclusions are always well considered.

[KenB]

Good to know, and I have really appreciated Denny's comments and insight, on this and other threads. I think we both agree on pretty much everything the other has posted... I think his research on the etechs is spot on. I even asked him for feedback on the HO 150 versus regular 150 for my 20SF.

I wanted to point out that you don't have to do oil changes at the dealership, and that should be factored into the cost when comparing motors.

Here in the north east, we have a very limited usage window... down time matters a lot more. So if two companies have different approaches or business models, it's important to outline what that means to end users. The general 4s mantra is 'change the oil and they will run forever.' The DI 2 strokes are much more finicky and must be serviced by pros, but when set up corrected should be basically service free.

Frank - didn't your opti just blow up from a fuel related issues? And wasn't it replaced by merc? I personally would rather pay extra for oil changes and not have an engine die on me out there, even if I got a free motor. Do you think if you had a high pressure injected motor or a 4 stroke it would have made a difference, in terms of limping back in?

Denny - You have a beautiful boat. I am really glad the etech has worked out for you thus far, and I know BRP will take care of you at the first signs of trouble. Enough of this already! Build fast go fishing!

Also, I sent the guy who started the thread the DF140 manual PDFs I have collected to date, and he seemed happy.

[Fr. Frank]

Frank - didn't your opti just blow up from a fuel related issues? And wasn't it replaced by merc?

Yes, sort of. But Mercury is not honoring my warranty.
This time it's High Pressure fuel pump and air pump failure, supposedly caused by ethanol. Yes, my motor is supposed to be under warranty til April 23 of this year (3+2 warranty). But no, Mercury is trying very hard not to pay for these repairs.

I have had my motor repaired under warranty four times previously:

• once for ethanol damage to sensors in the LPT, resulting in complete fuel system failure. The cost to repair in parts and labor was $6,700, (which is actually more than the $5,700 I paid for the motor when new in '06).
• once for computer failure, requiring replacement of the PCM: $1,700 in parts and labor.
• once for PCM-induced coil failures: $2,150 in parts and labor
• once for alternator failure: $600 parts and labor

Now we have ethanol induced failure of the fuel pump, plus the air pump swallowed a reed-valve when the HP fuel pump quit.

Mercury is now claiming that an "irregularity" with the original purchase paperwork for the motor voids my warranty, and in fact, I never had a valid warranty to begin with, even though they have authorized warranty repair four times previously. The "irregularity" is because I purchased my motor as a new "left-over" from ProLine Boats, who is "not an authorized retailer" of Mercury motors. The original invoice shows that ProLine Boats, inc., transferred the motor to ProLine Marine Services, inc., whose invoice named me on the the block for the address location for the motor to be shipped to, leaving the actual purchaser name block on the sales invoice blank. According to Mercury, this only means I received the motor, not that I purchased it, and I am therefore not entitled to the warranty, even though I have the cancelled check I wrote for the motor.

I have purchased eight new Mercury motors over the past 36 years, totalling over $36,000, from a pair of 25SS racing motors back in the 70's, to a 3.4L in the 80's, and this 90 Opti in '06.

I've bought more than 15 used Mercury's, counting those already rigged on boats I've purchased. But if Mercury Marine chooses to void my warranty for petty stuff like this, I will never buy another Mercury outboard, new or used, and I will use my influence to deter other people from buying Mercury as well.

I am very unhappy about all of this, can you tell?

[DonV]

I am very unhappy about all of this, can you tell?

Hummmm.........I can sure tell this is not a trick question!!! I can see why you are not happy!! Am I doing my math correctly, the four bullet points equal $11,150!?!?! So as not to use bad language, holly poop!

[KenB]

Frank - Thank you for the update, and I am really sorry about the headaches. You deserve a new motor. Have you discussed small claims court or the BBB with them? I am pretty sure either option would result in a decision in your favor. The paper work seems pretty clear. If they had just sold you an engine that worked, none of this would have happened!

That said, they did do a lot of work for you (to date), I think even if they don't replace this engine, you got your warranty's worth of service and repairs. Sounds like you had 30 years of great stuff from merc, so it seems silly to let this one get the best of you... It's not like they didn't take care of you at all before, or that you had lots of years left on the warranty. You did get 5 years out of that motor... maybe try a verado next? I think 2006 was pretty early on in the optimax era, so I am sure things are better with optis now too.

THE BURNING QUESTION... If you don't get a new opti from them, what next? Are you leaning towards etech? DF140? New Honda? Yammy? Maybe Tohatsu??? This should probably be a whole new section on the site, let alone a new thread: "Frank's new outboard search." My attempt at "silver lining"; if you don't want a merc, now you get to pick out something new!

While you are waiting for a new outboard... better get one of these: http://devour.com/video/water-jet-pack/

[Bushwacker]

Don, Richard, Frank and Urban – appreciate the kind words! And Frank, yes I actually thought about the repower & bracket for about 4 YEARS before I actually pulled the trigger, and I also spent several months comparing the various motors in great detail and putting together the spreadsheet. Sorry to hear about your motor problems, but sure appreciate your posting them. It's inspired me to start checking ethanol content! So far I haven't found anything over 10%, and what's in the boat now is about 5-6%.

KenB - you do have some good questions/comments which I’ll try to address . . .

2. BRP is of course a Canadian owned and managed company, but all of the E-TEC design, development and production work is done in Sturtevant, Wisconsin, which was still in the USA the last time I checked!

3. Oil changes? You’re right that oil changes are pretty simple compared to some of the high tech stuff on the new motors, although you can download the diagnostic software for free from BRP, and if you have a laptop with a serial port, you can buy or easily make a cable which plugs into the motor’s diagnostic port. It won’t let you do all the stuff a dealer can do, like change the oil ratio from TCW-3 to full synthetic, but it WILL give you the entire history of the motor, including time @ rpm in 500 rpm increments, max temperature of both heads and the ECM, along with any fault codes EVER displayed and engine hours at which they occurred. (Good to know if you’re considering a used one.) It WILL let you do some useful “cylinder drop” diagnostic tests, where you can sequentially disable the ignition or fuel injector on each cylinder to determine which cylinder is causing a misfire, etc.

You bet I’ve always changed my own oil in all my vehicles, mainly because I like to fill the new filter with oil before installing, which most places don’t do! They say running an engine dry for a few seconds doesn’t hurt anything, but I figure it sure as hell doesn’t HELP! In fact I’m planning to plumb a pressurized remote oil reservoir with a solenoid valve into the oil system on my old “Cuda when I finish restoring it. When I go to start that blueprinted & balanced engine after it’s been sitting for a month or so, a couple of quarts of oil will be forced thru it before I hit the starter!

“. . . E-TEC failure rate is the same as the Ficht.“ If that were true, the dealers who have to face the irate customers would have abandoned BRP en mass, and they would have gone out of business years ago. I’m frankly amazed that sales have recovered as well as they have after the Ficht fiasco. I think sandbagging on the power ratings is a smart approach, because once folks discover how strong they run, the resulting “word of mouth” will get more folks to looking at them than any marketing hype ever will. As for durability, only time will tell, but the service manager at my dealer says he’s had fewer problems on them than either the Honda’s or Yamahas, which seem to have good reputations themselves.

In my research, I didn’t waste time talking to sales/marketing types that can’t answer even simple technical questions! I agree that the marketing hype has been incredible. The very fact that there HAVEN’T been any big libel suits from the competition tells me that there was NOTHING in any of those comparison tests that a hungry lawyer (which the USA has plenty of!) could latch on to for a lawsuit. I spoke at length with 2 BRP engineers. The first guy said they had been watching the Ficht motors from the beginning, and based on their experience with the 2-stroke Sea/Ski-Doos, they felt that they understood what the problems were and how to fix them. It was obvious that OMC was in financial trouble, so they simply waited for the bankruptcy to buy them for pennies on the dollar. The Chief Engineer at the Stuart test center, who I had worked with in a previous job for many years and knew I could trust to give me the straight story, was there before and after the buyout. He said many of the Ficht problems were directly related to OMC buying off a lot of deviated parts, maybe because of financial pressure. He said that BRP management was a substantial, order of magnitude improvement; they really cleaned house, got rid of all the bad parts and even tightened up tolerances in some cases. He said the quality on anything built by BRP was dramatically improved over the OMC stuff and that they were truly excellent motors. As Chief Engineer, he had great visibility into the whole operation, so it was his confidence in the product that convinced me, back in March 2006, that the benefits of the then-new technology were sufficient to justify the risk to give it a try. So far it’s proved me right. However like most engineers, I’ve learned more about Murphy’s Law than I ever wanted to know. Murphy would say that as soon as I brag about the motor, it’ll blow up the next day!

4. Why do they cost so much with so many fewer parts? I honestly have no idea, except that since they are generally the lightest engines in class and nearly as quiet as the 4-strokes, they’re probably charging whatever the market will bear. Price is not always directly related to manufacturing cost if you have a very competitive product that’s in high demand. If they really were having lots of problems, sales would drop and they’d be forced to drop the price. So prices aren’t dropping? Draw your own conclusions!

On the E-TEC 150 HO – it’s only made in the 20” shaft version and has slightly less gear reduction, so it’s apparently aimed at the bass boat market. The standard version is what you want for our type of boat. If 165 hp at the prop isn't enough, the 175 and 200 are the same powerhead and weight, although the torque/rpm curves may be optimized toward the higher rpm range for the higher ratings. You also cannot change the gas/oil ratio on HO models from the factory TCW-3 setting to the reduced oil usage setting for the XD-100 full synthetic oil, so they’ll use a bit more oil than a standard “leaned out” motor.

Sorry for the long post but this site is notorious for good intelligent discussions of almost any issue. These issues are no different! Denny