Hi all,
I've posted this review in this forum, because I'm not looking to fix something. Before I bought this motor I searched the forums here for a review or experiences but didn't find much, so I thought it might be worthwhile to post a review of my experiences so far with this motor....
Background...
In spring of '08 I bought a new in the crate 25 hp short shaft tiller, dual start (both electric and manual start), 4 stroke EFI Mercury outboard. It was sold as "last year's stock" which was fine by me. I got the full 3 year warranty from the purchase date. The manufacturing date on the serial number lists it as being made in late '06 which fit with it being "an '07" model, even though Merc has done away with model years. I got what I still think is a really good deal on the motor... $2729 + tax which included a solas prop.
How it runs...
It runs very smooth (is a triple). Maybe I was expecting too much, but I was hoping it would be a little quieter at idle. No question it's way quieter than my old 2 stroke, but it's not exactly silent at idle. Someone sitting up front still has to raise their voice a little bit for me to hear of the motor idling at the back. I think I made a good guess on the prop pitch... it's on a 16' open utility boat, no wooden floor, no live wells. Just a couple swivel seats and rod holders, fish finder etc. A pretty basic and light boat. Anyway, after the 10 hour break in period the boat would hit 34+ mph (according to wheel speedo on fish finder, I saw 35 mph sometimes) with me alone in it, or ~32 mph with a medium load (2 adults and a couple kids). Even with a very light load, I never hit the rev-limiter, so I think the pitch is good. I went with an 11" pitch prop. The dealer didn't have any 12" pitches on hand, otherwise I would've been tempted to try that, but I'm glad to have the one I ended up with. I don't have a tach in it, so I can't tell you real rpm's. One thing that is very noticeable, is how good on fuel it is. I burn about 1/2 of what I used to burn in my old carb'ed 2 stroke 25 hp. Having said that, the difference in economy alone doesn't really justify (to me) replacing the old one. Maybe on a thirstier engine it'd figure more into the equation.
Things I don't like about it....
1) The shifting is poor. This model has the twist grip shifter, and it feels bad. Sometimes it is a battle to shift into or out of gear. I think this problem is largely due to #2 below.
2) The idle surges for a few seconds after changing gears (or sometimes just on it's own). I think it is an issue with the EFI module. When you shift into gear, the computer senses the slight drop in rpm's and then overcompensates which raises the rpm's to "fast idle". It takes 2-3 seconds for this fast idle to be corrected back down to the regular idle speed. If you try to shift out of gear while it is in fast idle, the clutch (which is under load) does not easily release and you have to muscle it into "N". I explained this to the service guy when I brought it in for warranty work (more on that below)... he made some calls and supposedly spoke to the head technical person overseeing this model in Canada. They said it was an EFI module programming issue, but that there is no fix for it at this time. Perhaps in the future they will issue a flash upgrade to the EFI computer to address it they said. Anyway, this problem makes it a real PITA to bump the motor in and out of gear, say either when docking or working the boat around a snagged line.
3) I'm not convinced yet about long-term reliability. I've had 2 issues with my motor. First, during break-in, the bolts holding the tiller-friction adjustment plate came loose and fell in the lake. No biggie... they ordered new ones and replaced them. I had to take the motor in for a recall notice that I got in the mail. It was to check the torque of the motor mounts. So, they replaced the bolts that were lost and did the recall (they said they did not find any incorrectly torqued bolts on mine). Secondly, and more seriously, 2 weekends ago the motor died suddenly at WOT. Would restart, but then stalled immediately. I needed to be towed back to the launch and took the motor in last week. Once on the trailer, I found that with engine in neutral, there was resistance to turning the prop by hand. The resistance changed as you turned the prop. I thought the lower unit "went south" and possibly the prop shaft was warped. This was confirmed to me today. They let me know that the lower unit is being replaced under warranty. Just FYI, before running the engine, I checked that the dealer had put gear oil in the lower unit, and actually gave it a couple pumps to make sure it was full. After a couple hours of run time, I quickly popped the drain plug, just to make sure there was no water intrusion, and it was fine. The failure happened with ~15 hours of run time. And no, I never hit anything with the prop, it's pristine.
All of the above is my first hand experience... here's some second hand info. A friend of mine bought the same motor 25 hp short shaft tiller EFI 4 stroke (but with no electric start) about a month ago. At about 3 hours of run time, his quit while on the lake, while on plane. Turns out all but one of the bolts holding his lower unit on had backed out and fallen out. There was only one remaining bolt holding it on, and this allowed the lower unit to rotate which caused the drive shaft to bend (or break?). His was fixed within a week or so and he's back on the water. But again, it makes me wonder about the long term reliability.
So, that's my story. I won't say that it was a bad purchase, the price was great, it runs strong, and both me and my green wife like that it's extremely clean running. But the "runablility" issue with the surging idle irks me, and I wonder whether things will continue to go wrong with it. It doesn't seem good to have a lower unit failure on a new motor. It also seems they have an issue with either things not being torqued correctly, or working themselves loose. If Honda or Yammie's could be had for a comparable price, maybe I'd have been better off with one of those (?). Or maybe I could've waited for the smaller e-tec's to come out (?). My guess is they'd be much more $$$.
Anyway, that's the story so far.
I've posted this review in this forum, because I'm not looking to fix something. Before I bought this motor I searched the forums here for a review or experiences but didn't find much, so I thought it might be worthwhile to post a review of my experiences so far with this motor....
Background...
In spring of '08 I bought a new in the crate 25 hp short shaft tiller, dual start (both electric and manual start), 4 stroke EFI Mercury outboard. It was sold as "last year's stock" which was fine by me. I got the full 3 year warranty from the purchase date. The manufacturing date on the serial number lists it as being made in late '06 which fit with it being "an '07" model, even though Merc has done away with model years. I got what I still think is a really good deal on the motor... $2729 + tax which included a solas prop.
How it runs...
It runs very smooth (is a triple). Maybe I was expecting too much, but I was hoping it would be a little quieter at idle. No question it's way quieter than my old 2 stroke, but it's not exactly silent at idle. Someone sitting up front still has to raise their voice a little bit for me to hear of the motor idling at the back. I think I made a good guess on the prop pitch... it's on a 16' open utility boat, no wooden floor, no live wells. Just a couple swivel seats and rod holders, fish finder etc. A pretty basic and light boat. Anyway, after the 10 hour break in period the boat would hit 34+ mph (according to wheel speedo on fish finder, I saw 35 mph sometimes) with me alone in it, or ~32 mph with a medium load (2 adults and a couple kids). Even with a very light load, I never hit the rev-limiter, so I think the pitch is good. I went with an 11" pitch prop. The dealer didn't have any 12" pitches on hand, otherwise I would've been tempted to try that, but I'm glad to have the one I ended up with. I don't have a tach in it, so I can't tell you real rpm's. One thing that is very noticeable, is how good on fuel it is. I burn about 1/2 of what I used to burn in my old carb'ed 2 stroke 25 hp. Having said that, the difference in economy alone doesn't really justify (to me) replacing the old one. Maybe on a thirstier engine it'd figure more into the equation.
Things I don't like about it....
1) The shifting is poor. This model has the twist grip shifter, and it feels bad. Sometimes it is a battle to shift into or out of gear. I think this problem is largely due to #2 below.
2) The idle surges for a few seconds after changing gears (or sometimes just on it's own). I think it is an issue with the EFI module. When you shift into gear, the computer senses the slight drop in rpm's and then overcompensates which raises the rpm's to "fast idle". It takes 2-3 seconds for this fast idle to be corrected back down to the regular idle speed. If you try to shift out of gear while it is in fast idle, the clutch (which is under load) does not easily release and you have to muscle it into "N". I explained this to the service guy when I brought it in for warranty work (more on that below)... he made some calls and supposedly spoke to the head technical person overseeing this model in Canada. They said it was an EFI module programming issue, but that there is no fix for it at this time. Perhaps in the future they will issue a flash upgrade to the EFI computer to address it they said. Anyway, this problem makes it a real PITA to bump the motor in and out of gear, say either when docking or working the boat around a snagged line.
3) I'm not convinced yet about long-term reliability. I've had 2 issues with my motor. First, during break-in, the bolts holding the tiller-friction adjustment plate came loose and fell in the lake. No biggie... they ordered new ones and replaced them. I had to take the motor in for a recall notice that I got in the mail. It was to check the torque of the motor mounts. So, they replaced the bolts that were lost and did the recall (they said they did not find any incorrectly torqued bolts on mine). Secondly, and more seriously, 2 weekends ago the motor died suddenly at WOT. Would restart, but then stalled immediately. I needed to be towed back to the launch and took the motor in last week. Once on the trailer, I found that with engine in neutral, there was resistance to turning the prop by hand. The resistance changed as you turned the prop. I thought the lower unit "went south" and possibly the prop shaft was warped. This was confirmed to me today. They let me know that the lower unit is being replaced under warranty. Just FYI, before running the engine, I checked that the dealer had put gear oil in the lower unit, and actually gave it a couple pumps to make sure it was full. After a couple hours of run time, I quickly popped the drain plug, just to make sure there was no water intrusion, and it was fine. The failure happened with ~15 hours of run time. And no, I never hit anything with the prop, it's pristine.
All of the above is my first hand experience... here's some second hand info. A friend of mine bought the same motor 25 hp short shaft tiller EFI 4 stroke (but with no electric start) about a month ago. At about 3 hours of run time, his quit while on the lake, while on plane. Turns out all but one of the bolts holding his lower unit on had backed out and fallen out. There was only one remaining bolt holding it on, and this allowed the lower unit to rotate which caused the drive shaft to bend (or break?). His was fixed within a week or so and he's back on the water. But again, it makes me wonder about the long term reliability.
So, that's my story. I won't say that it was a bad purchase, the price was great, it runs strong, and both me and my green wife like that it's extremely clean running. But the "runablility" issue with the surging idle irks me, and I wonder whether things will continue to go wrong with it. It doesn't seem good to have a lower unit failure on a new motor. It also seems they have an issue with either things not being torqued correctly, or working themselves loose. If Honda or Yammie's could be had for a comparable price, maybe I'd have been better off with one of those (?). Or maybe I could've waited for the smaller e-tec's to come out (?). My guess is they'd be much more $$$.
Anyway, that's the story so far.
Your buddy's problem was either a failure at the plant on QC or a dealer error. If he picked it up in the box blame QC. If the engine was out of the box it's more likely that the dealer borrowed the lower unit off of it and forgot to tighten the bolts when it was put back on. Barring impact damage, fishing line/seal failure or rookie shifting error the average lower unit will go 3000 hours of operation without problems