10 years ago the most Powerful outboard you could get was a 275hp verado, now with factory 400hp mercs and 627hp 7 marine (to a lesser extent) there is a lot more options. Would be very interesting to see how many of those I/o sales in the 250-350hp bracket have been replaced with similar powered outboards on the same style of boat.

Down here n Florida outboard boats don't Die, they just get another outboard bolted on.

Stern drive boats Are left to Die by the thousands. Hell look how many nice boats have been parted and cut up just on this site.

Four strokes started the Revolution.

A properly setup and cared for Yamaha 4stroke will outlive most people on this site.

Outboards are just too simple. Buy an engine, bolt it on the back, adjust the height and play with the props.

Inboard/stern drive. Buy an engine, change the cam, new headers, add a whipple, match it to a stern drive, change the gears, play with props, add drive spacers, fit external steering and then wait for it to break down.

If everyone left their inboards the way Mercury built them, they'd probably never break down, just the routine servicing by a contortionist, double jointed mechanic under 5' and you'll do well. Everyone seems to be pushing for power and I'm sure many engines get rebuilt to higher spec and they are brilliant but with the power comes the lack of reliability and more frequent servicing.

Outboards don't get modified from original spec to anywhere near the same degree as inboards so they retain their ease of service and reliability. The average boater doesn't want huge bills after having spent a bundle up front to buy the boat.

Weight saving, space saving, easy maintenance, lower long term costs and up to 400 horsepower readily available from the manufacturer. It's easy to see why outboards are dominating.

RR

Here I I'm stuffing a I/O in a Pontoon

I realize I'm the 1% and can work on my own stuff and I'm not affraid to think outside the box, but when I was building my pontoon I want a quite 150ish hp motor. Well to get a outboard that would cost me 10 grand I had about 10% of that into my first motor.

They arent any harder to work on the an outboard in my opioion

I prefer not having that big motor sticking up out back, gives the boat a cleaner look I think

Since they have been around for so many yrs parts are easy to come by and cheap, if you keep looking. For instance I bought a complete 454/bravo set-up this spring fo 2k sold the 454 off for 1800. Now I could have spent 2k just on a bravo set-up but instead I have 200 into it and, I got all the little peices that add up.

Now I do see the apply to outboards speical in the salt waters where you can pick them up and out of the water when not being used.

I think alot of it has todo with what type of boats people are buying these days, pontoons and CC are the new "go-fast" boats you see and for the most part those are Outboard only boats.

Maybe in 10yrs the market will shift and will see more go-fast boats I doubt it but you never know

That 's just cuel

Ideally there would be more competition in the I/O market. In their consumer models, Mercury still has the same HP and weight offerings they've had for decades despite developing their own engines. Like the article says, Volvo has the lead in this area but nobody on here wants their stuff.

Even stock Meercuisers Suk

Cheap plastic water pumps that are a pain in the ass to service. Firikin gimbal assemblies are shot after 3-400 hours .

Crappy paint on the motors that barely covers and falls off after a year. Just junk.

I had the pleasure of wrenching on a buddies 496 the other evening. Love the way I have to remove the remote oil line in order to remove the port rear cylinder spark plug wire.

That's handy.

Could it also be due to the EPA regs and the people with older blue I/O engines prefer them to the newer offerings from Merc and would rather refresh their blue motors? Outboards as well, the older 2.5 Offshores seem to be going up in price and parts that are no longer manufactured are going up big time like CLE lowers for instance. Seem's like not everybody wants sportmasters on their 260 and 280 OS outboards.

Not sure, but I think the explosion of the tournament ski wakeboarding boat may have something to do with diminished stern drive sales.

There is no middle class mom, dad and kids that can afford a new twenty some foot boat.