Ribnet outboard analysis

[Phil Davies]

As the owner of a Honda outboard, it has always occured to me how few seem to feature on the transoms of Ribnet members' boats. It was with this in mind, therefore, that I set about conducting a random and, admittedly very unscientific, analysis of which outboards are the preferred choice for RIB users. The results may be entirely predictable to the techie types amongst you but for the benefit of some of us less experienced ribsters I would be interested in hearing people's views or conclusions on them.

I specifically selected frequent posters on the forum on the basis that these tend to be the more experienced, and therefore knowledgeable ribsters, whose choice of outboard is more likely to have been an informed one. I have not included diesel or inboard engines. Of the 59 engines selected, 18 were Yamaha, 17 Mariner, 9 Suzuki, 9 Mercury, 3 Honda, 1 Evinrude, 1 Johnson and 1 Tohatsu.

1. Why so few Hondas? Premium pricing or are they perceived as 'old technology? I always thought they had a reputation for longevity and certainly they seem more popular with commercial operators than leisure users.

2. Is the high incidence of Yamahas predictable?

3. Excellent showing for Mariner. Conversely to Honda, is this a reflection of more competitive pricing? Interestingly, Mariner featured strongly in the high horsepower categories, particularly with the Optimaxes. So why half the number of Mercury units?

4. I imagine the relatively low number of Suzukis would be a reflection of their traditionally low marketing profile in the UK, since their latest 4-strokes seem to receive unbridled praise from users. Of all the brands Suzuki seems to be getting noticeably more aggressive in recent times.

5. Are certain brands favoured in particular horsepower categories? Most of the engines in the poll were between 90 and 175hp.

Anyway, probably not many conclusions to be drawn, but I'd be interested to know what influences people's choice of outboard. I'm sure there's more to it than price.

[Rogue Wave]

Hi Phil,

I presenyly own a Honda, an Opti and a Yamaha and I have used all of them a lot. I also have about 4 hours experience of a mate's big Yamaha.

1 Honda's are heavy and have a depressing power to weight reputation, They seem to be reliable and do start OK and I never found the servicing prices to be that extortionate. (given that all Outboard parts are gruseomely expensive)

I believe however they measure the power output at a diferent point i.e the crank as opposed to the prop which makes a Honda 130 equivalent to a merc 110 or so.

They are also quite pricey but do come with a five year warranty, which according to the Honda dealer is bulettproof. Also Honda at one time were the preferred engine partner to Avon and Scorpion ?

2 Yamaha I have a three pot yamaha and of all my outboards I think the Yamaha which appears to be the best made. They are always at the edge of technology abd performance and sre really great engines 2 or 4 stroke. they ar estill percieved as the status symbol outboard I think.

3 mariner/mercury i think the optimax's are the best engines around and the only outboards iI would buy in the forseeable future, unless a real deal iss available from a competitor.

Merc and Mariners weree marketed seperately until a few years ago, i think the Mercs were marketed by Barrus and the Mariners by Sowester? I always thaought that the Mariner colour scheme was very similar to the Yamaha's, and I think that people subconciously thought this also and bought more of them than Mercuries.

4 Dunno but I suspect you are right

5 In my opinion small Yamahas up to 90 2 strokes are excellent engines and any other engine in the range is really good

Over 115 then it has to be an Opti for me or a Yamaha if I had to. I have been thinking about the Tohatsu's lately since I heard they were the marine arm of Nissan

[Bilge Rat]

Hi Phil

As your aware i inherited my engine with the boat when i bought it, and of course all the problems that went with it. When i was debating the "shall i rebuild or by new" thing back last year i looked into buying new engines and it seems everyone rated the Mercury, Suzuki's and Yams and the Mercs even had an endorsment from my mechanic who says its easy to get parts, they are cheap and he never seems to see major problems with mercs.

Now for various reasons i chose to rebuild rather than buy a new motor but i think if i was buying new now i'd be looking at what i know works rather than being tempted by newer technology as yet untested by the market.
Our county scout boat has twin 50 4 stroke Hondas on it and they swear blind by them, and if a friend of mine comes along on the SE Southend run in two weeks you can talk to him about Yams as he has an 80 4 stroke on a 5.5 searider and is having problems with it at the moment.

Richard

[Phil Davies]

Thanks for your comments, chaps - very interesting, although this thread seems to have gone down like a bucket of cold sick with the rest of the forum
Perhaps Ian was right after all when he pm'd me after reading the post and told me I really needed to get a life, get out more and start meeting some new people rather than making sad little analyses of what engines people use

[David Hickman]

I have currently got a Honda 150hp on order for my new RIB. Prices wise the Yamaha was more expensive. That surprised me.

[Rogue Wave]

David, I think Honda must clearly know where the real competition for their products lie and that's got to be with Yamaha. They have to be competitively priced to make a dent in Yamaha's market share. I must admit the Honda 150 is a lot more attractive than the 130.

I guess I need a life too ass I thought this was quite a good thread.

[Brian]

Originally posted by Phil Davies
Thanks for your comments, chaps - very interesting, although this thread seems to have gone down like a bucket of cold sick with the rest of the forum

Be fair, Phil, the thread is only 15 hours old.
I haven't even got an outboard, but I am finding the thread interesting!

[Phil Davies]

Yes, thanks Brian - I must admit I find the whole engine thing extremely interesting, but when I tell you my job involves analysing the markets for heavy earthmoving machinery in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, you'll understand my paranoia at the mere whisper of the word 'anorak'

[Daniel]

My 10p's worth:

Yamaha being top-of-the-list does not supprise my at-all. They have a great reputation and deserve it.

IMHO Mariners have an image of being slightly cheaper than Merc's, hence more of them although to my knowledge they are identical except paint colour.

The honda only has one thing going for it (strictly IMHO), it's warrenty, and for some this is important, hence people buy 'em but i can't think of another reason.

I was speaking to the guys from the Honda/Cougar racing people yesterday at the boatshow and was very suprised to hear they offer not only the 5yr leisure warrenty but a 2year race warrenty with their 150/225 in this class. Now that is confidence for you. Furthermore the guy said they will trade it in after 2 years and for 3k you get a new engine with another 2 years race warrenty in it! This brings to cost of getting into racing into reality for me and i'm really quite excited about it!

[aligator]

Hi Phil
sorry that you feel ignored but ive only just logged on and read your post but if it helps,
I had amercury 2 stroke which gave no trouble so when i bought a new boat that came with a 4stroke merc i didnt mind, the price was compareable with the others.
i think that unless you have definate requirments yourll be swayed by the dealer to have what ever make he gets the best deal on or is tied up with (ribeye was or still is tied with yamaha)

last year at the boat show one dealer was packaging his zodiacs with hondas this year its suzuki

2nd hand boat and theres no choice.

However i was suprised to see mercs so low on the list.
and besides if you don't supply this sort of information no one else will.

Alistair

[woot]

Good thread, at the end of last year I had to make the decision of which outboard to go for with no previous knowledge or experience of owning an outboard, which was a bit scary. I decided on the Yam 60hp 4 stroke. My decision was based partly from scouring this forum for negative comments on engines and partly from getting in the car and talking to various dealers and service centres and getting a feel for the level of confidence they had in what they were selling and how hard they were trying to sell it. A consistent theme with the yams seemed to be that no hard sell was necessary they sold themselves on a good reputation. I'm encouraged by the figures from the experienced Ribsters maybe if I had the sense to do the simple count up I wouldn't have spent so much time fretting about whether I had made a good/bad decision. For the record I've only put about 8hrs on the engine but having spent the last ten years on dodgy dive Ribs with all manner of thrashy thirsty engines I can't believe how quiet and economical the yam is.

[Richard Taylor]

Similarly, I had to choose a new motor last year. I had experience of using (small) outboards regularly 20-25 years ago but have had a long break since. Even though it was ancient history these experiences have stayed with me and they coloured my judgement far beyond any rational relevance. All had been second hand, my favourite was a 3.9hp Merc, probably as it was my first engine, I have no idea how old it was, probably mid-late sixties. The most reliable was a tiny 2hp Suzuki which appeared indestructable despite being appallingly badly treated. The worst were a 4hp Johnson which broke down more than it ran and a real pig of a 25hp Johnson which nobody seemed capable of repairing. So 25 years on I still couldnt bring myself to consider Johnson (or Evinrude). But getting to the point and answering the question.... There is a lot of emotion involved for some. For me it came down to Yamaha or Suzuki. I went for the Suzuki as I liked the electronic fuel injection and the idea of a timing chain rather than the usual belt. (The engine experts on here will probably inform me that Ive got that wrong). Also the Suzuki 90 is 1950cc where the Yam 100 is 1596cc so I figured the Suzi might be a little less hard worked. I too have only put a few hours on the motor so far, but Im not disappointed yet.

Rick

[Diesel]

Sowerster used to be the Mercury people and Barrus did the Mariners, Now Barrus do both of them.

[tue]

Mariners are about 20% cheaper than Mercury, for exactly the same engine, except you get more black paint and a Mercury badge!!!

[Daniel]

Originally posted by tue
except you get more black paint and a Mercury badge!!!

Worth it though

[CJL]

I`ve got a 150 Mariner Opti and was surpirsed to see about 200 nicker more for a different colour engine casing with Mercury written on the side at the LBS!

Crazy to think people will pay £200 for a label.

[Rogue Wave]

what a lovely picture

[Robert1]

Mercurys do look superb! Got mine through Ribcraft who didn't do the markup, which was nice! Great looking engines though - instilling pride in the overall setup of RIB and engine.

Robert

[Manos]

Phil I will only use a Yamaha and/or a Mariner. Never had a problem with those 2.
Evinrude and Jonson are in my bad books.
Mercs never had one.

[CJL]

We were running a load of Hondas at my Uni. They were used every day for five or six hours for a year. Then all of a sudden they started going wrong. One 40hp came back from the dealer with corrosion round the exhaust valves. Honda would not cover them on warranty because we were using them too much! (Cheap metal mix in the castings!)

Having said that they do look nice in silver.

We have now bought two 40hp, two 75Hp and one 115Hp Merc.
They do sound much better, throatier (is that a word?) than the Hondas. Also the DOHC and extra CC means they are much more powerful. (Is the hp measured at the prop on these?) No problems so far! They did not pay the premium cause of the job lot order.


Chris