Re: Newbie needs opinoin on Lowe FM165
Hi Keegamn.. I'm new to the board also.. I bought a 2008 FM165 last summer and it came with a 60 four stroke and by talking to people and the dealer, they told me to max out the engine, so I maxed it with 75 Merc and I don't regret it one bit. I can pull the kids on water skis or with the tube and it goes. A friend of mine got the exact same boat the year before with a 60 four stroke Merc. and he has trouble getting it to plane with 3 people in it. Just my 2 cents.
Same experience here. Bought my new rig with a 25 hp even though the max was 40. The dealer assured me that the 30 would plane with no problem and I even said I'll have 4 people on it from time to time. What he did was dump problematic supposedly new 2006 O/B that he said he would give me a great price on.
It took 100 yards to get it to plane with two people on board. I gave it back to him and got the max rated 40 and the boat planes in 2-3 feet now with the two of us. Does well with 3 and when I know I'll have 4 for the day I swap to a lower pitch prop just for the increased handling.
I know it's aways a stretch to get the max or at least 75% of max when we buy new boats (it was for me at the time). But if you figure it's around $1000 for each 10 hp step up and you divide that extra cost by say 5 years, it's not that much of a stretch if you look at how little extra it cost "per year" over that 5 year period. This is how to "pencil sell" the Wife, you bring the extra cost down to it's lowest common denominator on paper by dividing it by 5. Actually, 10 years is even better to use (as you are smiling inside since you know you will probably be trading up to a bigger rig after two seasons
)
By getting up on plane quicker, the gas savings will offset a good chunk of that extra per year cost too, in my opinion.
I've viewed many posters that chime in when these types of O/B rating questions come up and say they have no problems with the particular O/B rating that they bought with their boat even though they went with one that was too far away from the max. This is because they really don't know what their boat should or could handle like because they never test drove a bigger HP O/B and just bought it off the floor. They might have listened to some salesman (read sleezman) that was looking out more for a commission by putting a lower priced package together for a quicker sale. Then you put the family in your new boat and it's a disappointment
Bigger is always better