I bought an '05Triumph 210CC last year with Df140 on it. Had no problems with the motor, winterized it and then have had nothing but major problems with it this year. All started out fine then noticed I was leaving an oil sheen on the water when I was idling or going through no wake zones. I pulled the cowl and after about an hour of searching I thought I found the problem when I found a pin hole leak in the oil filter. Basically did another oil change on it and thought that was the end of the problem but little did I know that that was just the start of the avalnche that was coming. Put it back on the water and still noticed I was leaving a sheen on the water so I brought it back home and took all of the covers off of the motor and searched every square inch and couldn't find any thing. I don't know what made me do it but I decided to check the lower unit oil and after pulling the drain plug it looked like someone had replaced the oil with coffee with about a gallon of cream in it. So I toted it to the "local" Suzuki shop and after spending $900 (which I might as well have just thrown into the wind, explanation to follow) he told me that the lower unit was rebuilt but........ that I still had a pin hole leak in either my crankcase cover or in the block and that as long as I kept an eye on the oil that I should be fine. Thought to myself that that was an odd thing for him to tell me instead of calling me and asking if I wanted him to locate and fix the problem but was getting a real good vibe from him. Put the boat back on the water and I was STILL leaving a sheen on the water, by now I'm getting real pissed. My neighbor and I fished for about 6 hours drifting through the Indian River Inlet and I would have to say that the motor was only run for maybe an hour in that time. The last time we went to reset for the last drift I throttled up and the motor bogged down and the oil alarm went off so I quick shut it down and poured the 3 quarts of oil into the motor and made the quick run to the marina store for 2 more. We were ready to call it quits for the day when I said let's make a quick flat out run to gauge oil loss so we would know. After running flat out for 15 minutes down the coast and 15 minutes back we pulled the dip stick and it was bone dry, not a lick of oil on it. We loaded it back on the trailer and got it home, cleaned it up and I knew I had to flush the motor so I poured 4 quarts in, thinking it was dry, and flushed it. Checked the dip stick and it now said I was 4 quarts high on oil, that's when I decided to take it to my regular shop. I dropped it off on Monday morning and got a call Tuesday morning that they think the leak is at the crankcase seal but.......... they did a compression test on the motor and lo and behold 3 of my 4 cylinders were way below Suzuki standards. 1 of them didn't even make it to 150 and 2 were below that. Only 1 made it into the 200's where they're supposed to be. They tell me that I could swap the power head but that I would still have an '05 motor, which I'm not feeling real confident about as we were planning on some off shore fishing this year. Or I could repower the boat and after very careful consideration that is what I chose to do. About the only thing that I've left out of this journey is that the previous owner let the boat sit out of the water for 2 years and yes I already know and have been chastised for, is that I should have had it checked out before purchase but in my defense I was going from a bass boat to a salt boat and had stars in my eyes. I have sent a letter to Suzuki but I'm still waiting for a response as to what if anything they will do. I don't think a motor that is only 5 years old should be having these kind of problems even if it was out of the water for 2 years.
