Mercury 125 vs Merc-Force 120

[mango1229]

i posted in mercury forums but didnt get many responses so figured id try here.
anyways i have a '98 Force by Merc 120. Its running great & pushes my 18' boat well at 40+ mph. ive come across a 2001 merc 125 that a private owner is selling. if the motor checks out, would this be a worth while upgrade? i'm pretty sure my force has a merc lower unit & ignition/some electrical. the main benefit i see with the 125 is that its oil-injected where as my force isnt. any other substantial differences? performance or reliability?
thanks!

 

[JimS123]

Re: Mercury 125 vs Merc-Force 120

I have a friend with a '99 Force 120 by Merc, and its a piecocrap. It was bought new and maintained professionally, but its always breaking down. If that's your experience, certainly switch. If yours runs good, stick with what works. You never know what the second hand one will be. If he's selling it that's not a good sign.

If your incentive is to get oil injection, that's not a good reason. If you add the oil manually, you know what you got. The only problems with ANY motor I ever had were with oil injection. Personally, I think a non-injected engine would have a better selling point.

 

[roscoe]

Re: Mercury 125 vs Merc-Force 120

I agree, if your motor is running well, keep it.

You won't see much (if any) difference in performance.

If on the other hand, your Force is having mechanical problems, you may find it hard to find a shop willing to work on it, depending on your location. And parts for the old Force, cost just as much as for a more modern Mercury.

 

[AChotrod]

Re: Mercury 125 vs Merc-Force 120

What about controls and all that? Can you just swap the motor only? With that said if your motor is running good I wouldnt waste the money, time or effort for little return. My Johnson is pre mix and my merc is oil injection. Oil injection is a bit easier at the gas pump but you never know if it fails until its too late.

 

[mango1229]

Re: Mercury 125 vs Merc-Force 120

Jim, what exactly is going wrong with your friends force? just out of curiousity..I've only had mine since july and its ran very good so far..I mean its certainly not the smoothest running motor ive seen, but its does its job & gets me to 40+ mph which is respectable. It is noisy & smokes quite a bit. i would think a more advanced, oil injected o/b would have better characteristics, less smoke & oil consumption etc... I saw this privately owned 125 merc and thought it may be an "upgrade" from my old technology force motor that i can get a good deal on. I have mercury controls, so i could prob rig up and go. it was just an idea though, and i def agree what you guys are saying about not giving up my motor if its running good now that i think about it. i'd love a newer fuel injected or 4stroke motor but thats not in my budget yet. if considering both the force & mercury are in prime running condition, would the mercury be a smoother running/ cleaner more efficient motor?

 

[JimS123]

Re: Mercury 125 vs Merc-Force 120

Jim, what exactly is going wrong with your friends force? just out of curiousity..I've only had mine since july and its ran very good so far..I mean its certainly not the smoothest running motor ive seen, but its does its job & gets me to 40+ mph which is respectable. It is noisy & smokes quite a bit. i would think a more advanced, oil injected o/b would have better characteristics, less smoke & oil consumption etc... I saw this privately owned 125 merc and thought it may be an "upgrade" from my old technology force motor that i can get a good deal on. I have mercury controls, so i could prob rig up and go. it was just an idea though, and i def agree what you guys are saying about not giving up my motor if its running good now that i think about it. i'd love a newer fuel injected or 4stroke motor but thats not in my budget yet. if considering both the force & mercury are in prime running condition, would the mercury be a smoother running/ cleaner more efficient motor?

Nothing wrong right now, but its been in the shop wayyy too much over the years. Starter, multiple water pumps in one year because it wasn't cooling, ignition problems, starts poorly cold even when running good.

Old technology ?....yeah for sure. My 1953 Evinrude runs just fine and its old as well. To my way of thinking fuel injection is an upgrade, but oil injection is just asking for trouble.

 

[submariner1980]

Re: Mercury 125 vs Merc-Force 120

Nothing wrong right now, but its been in the shop wayyy too much over the years. Starter, multiple water pumps in one year because it wasn't cooling, ignition problems, starts poorly cold even when running good.

Nothing wrong with FORCE but shop I would recommend to change.:tape:

 

[JimS123]

Re: Mercury 125 vs Merc-Force 120

Nothing wrong right now, but its been in the shop wayyy too much over the years. Starter, multiple water pumps in one year because it wasn't cooling, ignition problems, starts poorly cold even when running good.

Nothing wrong with FORCE but shop I would recommend to change.:tape:

Every problem was a different one, and got fixed to his satisfaction. It wasn't that it kept going back in for the same problem. Also, not many shops willing to even look at a Force.

 

[mango1229]

Re: Mercury 125 vs Merc-Force 120

i cant see why a water pump would fail several times in one year.. My force starts fine and runs within normal temp. its does however seem to run poorly and stall if it idles too long. but i would say thats more of a 2stroke characteristic. around here in NJ, just about every marina that works on mercury will also work on forces..
from what ive read about these motors, it seems like people hate em or love em. luck of the draw i guess.. mines run good for 3months so far so i dont know if i should push my luck & keep it or get rid of it..its off season now & theres good deals all over on outboards

 

[greenbush future]

Re: Mercury 125 vs Merc-Force 120

Force motors are just cheap mercs meant to be marketed to consumers that didn't want to spend bigger bucks on a name brand outboard. The division that made them failed, because they were always breaking down and had very bad reviews. They were sold as packages on some low end boats, to keep the price down.
If your Force runs good, I would just run it. The Merc you are looking at could be abused and prone to the repair shop even more than the reputation of Force outboards, you just don't know the history of that outboard. I wouldn't swap out a thing, for the reasons you mentioned. But if the Force eats the big one, I would consider it an upgrade to getting the Merc. But in your case you say your Force runs well. Never swap out a good running outboard for an unknown one. And for the record I have owned both.

 

[Frank Acampora]

Re: Mercury 125 vs Merc-Force 120

Force engines are not just cheap Mercs for marketing purposes. In fact, Mercury already had the cheaper Mariner brand and in 99 dropped Force for several reasons: They are "dirty" engines not amenable to pollution control, and they were competing against Mariner--no sense having two low priced engine lines.

The Force blocks are completely different than Mercury and still the old Chrysler design. That said, After 1994 when Brunswick AMF (parent company of Mercury , Force, Trophy, and Bayliner) started to put Mercury lower units, tilt/trim, and electronic ignition, it made a vast difference in performance. (In fact, it was common practice for Chrysler racers to swap in Mercury ignitions.)

So much so that you probably would not see much performance improvement by swapping in the Mercury 125. Yeah, you still will see some improvement because the Mercury uses a different porting/piston/cylinder head design and we all know that Mercs are under-rated some.

Agree with the above statement that gaining oil injection is not a reason for swapping.

If you still want to do it, these later Force engines DO use the Mercury controls and wiring--not sure about the 94 though. If your rig has Merc 3000 controls and the Mercury wiring harness, swapping is simply a matter of changing the engine and perhaps a little fine tuning on the controls.