Best Outboard Brand for Owner Maintenance?

[billtwymank]

******

In our NC coastal area.........
most all of the commercial fishermen (crabbers) use.... Honda's
that's a very good indicator for me!!!!

One thing I noticed.........
the parts fit... is a very precision fit.......
...make sure you have extra O-Rings........
they are sure easy to cut.........
when replacing some of the parts (fuel filters)........

I never throw out an old O-Ring.....
and keep a couple of extra NEW O-Rings in stock.


It seems like everyone that walks the dock
always have a complement for the Honda's
sitting on the back of our TomCat.

******

[Les Lampman]

Repeat after me:

It isn't about the brand, it isn't about the brand, it isn't about the brand.

You guys sound like a bunch of dudes sitting around the bar arguing over the best truck; that's (at least) a 60-year-old argument that's never going to end as long as there's more than one manufacturer.

There is no best. It's always a combination of personal preference, what's "hot" in the local market (usually fueled by a good dealership (or dealerships) in the area), and access to parts and service.

All new engines are complex and highly engineered and most (except kickers) are EFI with lots of sensors, a computer that runs the whole thing, and have a need to be diagnosed by a computer hooked up to it.

All of them can be easily connected to digital gauges or to NMEA 2000 for output to a navigation system.

All of them can be easily maintained and repaired by technicians with proper training and experience. None of them can be properly maintained or worked on by incompetent or inexperienced technicians. You can't do any more as a "home mechanic" to a modern outboard than you can to a new car. If you open the hood of your car and don't feel comfortable diving in it's not any easier on a new outboard (of any brand). Modern outboards are now built to automotive standards (at least the 4-strokes) and share more similarities to them than to outboards of days gone by.

There are far more similarities than differences between all the current engines on the market. The largest being between 2-stroke technology and 4-stroke technology but even at that they all have pistons, all have fuel systems, and all have electronic ignition and control systems.

In about 20 years when we've worn out our Yamaha, or Suzuki, or Honda, etc we can all sit around and argue which is the best engine. In the meantime any one of them will get you where you want to go with a minimal of fuss if it's properly maintained for the next 20 years or so (barring the engine that really does have a problem and that can happen in anything that has an engine...car, motorcycle, snowmobile, ATV, RV, ad infinitum).

I've heard horror stories about every brand on the market, none of them are immune. I can tell you with certainty that there will always be 3 groups for any product: 10% are those that love it and wouldn't have anything else, 10% are those that hate it and would never own it, and 80% are those that do just fine with whatever they have.


********************

By the way, Grumpy's issue was very simple...a dead ECU (the same thing that happens to cars when the Black Box (ECU) goes dead). Takes about 10 minutes for a non-mechanic to change. His "issue" was not having a mechanic that could diagnose the problem where he stopped. It wouldn't have made any difference what brand the engine had been if he had stopped at that same service place; the mechanic just didn't have the expertise to properly troubleshoot and diagnose a problem on a modern complex outboard (ALL outboards (other than kickers) are now run by an ECU)...at least not the ECU.

Since he has twins the simplest test was to swap the ECU's in the engines (about 15 minutes) and see if the problem followed the ECU. It did...done deal...get a new one (UPS, FedEx, DHL, etc go most places in the world)...install it (10 minutes)...and get back to cruising. This would have worked on any brand (though the level of ease of access to the ECU may be different on various brands/models).

[Matt Gurnsey]

My first question is always "Who's your local dealer?"

Because the "best" outboard in the world will be the "worst" if you don't have good local support.

We handle four lines of engines- and people ask me which is "best"- I always ask what horsepower, because each line has it's strength and weaknesses.

It is possible to get Yamaha's software and cable to hook your computer to the motor- but then what? Not many owners have the technical knowledge to know what they're looking at and determine what the correct course of action is.

And will that online parts site offer technical support? Sure their parts are cheap, but is there somebody there who is factory trained that can offer advice? Or who has actually worked on these engines and may know a trick or two?

Hands-on experience can be invaluable, as our techs see repeat issues and their cause. They may know from hand-on which parts is likely to cause an issue, and the best way to repair it.

[beermanPDX]

[Les Lampman]

[Les Lampman]

[Aurelia]

There is something to be said for preference.

If a buyer had good experience with a brand, and they have local dealer support for that brand, might as well buy that brand and stay positive all around.

A person who loves Suzuki but winds up with a Yamaha, will be more apt to voice a complaint about that motor and we all hear about it. If they had the motor they wanted, there would be more positive statements or silence from them.

Get what you like and what is supported locally and all will be happy in most cases.

Or just get any motor and be thankful you don't have to row.

Greg

[starcrafttom]

The original question is what motor is easiest to work on your self? Well I think they all are to the point that you can work on them. Oil, plugs, water pump, filters and valves are just about the only thing you really have to do to maintain your motor.

More to the point is not working on them but diagnosing the problem. Given a shop book and a tool set I can pull a motor completely apart and I might even be able to put it back together. Figuring out what is wrong is the hard part. Even then its more a matter of money. Buying the reader and learning how to use it. Most of the thing that are going to go wrong are sensor. If I know which sensor is bad I can uninstall and replace it my self.

So is there a code reader available for my Honda 225 to the public? I have one for my ford ( well my father has it and I borrow it) it has saved us money before. It cost far more for the shop to diagnose the bad air flow sensor then it does for the time it takes to put one in.

I am not a motor head by any stretch of the imagination but I was raised by one. It mostly comes down to learning how to trouble shoot your motor. I recently had motor trouble on the 27 headed for Friday harbor. I was not getting full power and was getting lower MPG. So what do you check first? Well there are only two major areas I can check myself on the boat. Fuel and spark. Fuel is easy pop the top and see if fuel is making it to the last filter and are any of the three filters in the system clogged. If so find out where and replace or clean. Spark? Is the motor getting juice? If not check the cable and all fuses. If it is check each plug until you find one that is not firing. That's what my problem was. One plug was bad. I did the swap thing with another plug to make sure it was the plug and not the coil. ( my motor has 6 coils).

When Peter had a no starting motor last year we could not find the problem because we did not know where all the fuses where. Peter and I checked all the ones we could find but there was one he did not know about. Later that caused me to go out to the boat and find all the fuses between the battery and the key, then the key and motor on my boat. It was a simple fix for Peter but a shop guy had to do it and it cost him time on the water. Peter had to use the kicker to get home.

I think we would all be well served if we spent more time getting to know our systems and tracing wires in the driveway so when things do go bad we can trouble shoot the problem better.

Oh also have the right tools and know how to use them. I am not a electrical engineer but I was raised by one. I am ashamed to admit that I am just learning to use a volt meter correctly. As Friday harbor Pats auto pilot was not working and I messed with it for a hour before going to the simple task of tracing the power flow to the unit. Just checking the fuses is not always enough. Pats problem is that the big red disengage button on the dash was stuck. You could not tell just by looking at it and pressing it several times was not working. Only when we borrowed a volt meter did we figure out that there was no juice coming out of the button. Neither pat or I had a volt meter on our boats. I'm still working on learning to use one.

[Dora~Jean]

Just to add my 2c and something nobody mentioned. I have twin Yamaha 80's (4-stroke) on my CD25, love them, I have done all my own maintenance so far (except first 20 hour maintenance). Have had one regulator go out, most likely my fault by putting my battery switch on BOTH when one battery went South, then having both engines run at the same time on the batteries while connected together -- a BIG NO-NO on any engine. The regulator failed (smoked) about 2 months later in the middle of the channel between Catalina and San Pedro, 10 nm from the marina, at night in the rain with my family on board. Glad to have that 2nd motor! The new regulator was about twice the size but fit perfectly, they must have realized a design change was needed.

But at least one difference between Yamaha and Honda that I'm aware of is valve adjustment. My Yami's require you to buy specific size shims to adjust the valves (measure, order, wait, install). The Honda's, of this size, have an adjustable bucket and ? method, which I'd really prefer. So far the valves are still in spec after 600+ hrs.

But I'm sold on Yami's, my first was a 3HP in 1988, still have it and use it all year long on my dingy, runs perfect. What sold me originally on it was that my previous small Mercs, Johnsons, and Evinrude (same as Johnson), all had a rich/lean knob on the front panel, you needed to use it to compensate for temperature/humidity or whatever to make it run, especially if parking it in the afternoon then running again at night, something my wife was totally unable to do in the event of an emergency. The Yami 3HP doesn't have one, they're carb design is superior in my opinion, at least for that size compared to the others I've owned, love it.

[tpbrady]

Not being a dealer but having to support multiple boats and engines a long way from a dealer, here are my criteria:

The best motor is:
a. The most reliable (they all pretty much qualify)
b. Has the best technical manual
c. Requires the fewest number of special tools to do simple things
d. Has good internal diagnostics
e. Makes diagnostic software available to consumers.
f. Has a ready source of parts for routine maintenance.

I have technical manuals for both Hondas and Yamahas. They both are generally pretty good. I can't speak to Suzuki or Mercury, and the last I checked getting an ETEC manual was close to impossible. You can buy the Yamaha software, but getting software for Hondas and ETECs is not easy and borders on not possible the last I checked. I don't know on Suzuki or Mercury since I don't have experience with them.