The egg beaters are the laptops of boating and the I/Os are the desktops. For the last four years I have been down in the Caribbean area during the month of April based out of St. Martin and Martinique/ St. Lucia. All I see are center councils with 2,3,4,5,6 mostly Mercury's strung across the back.When I return home to the Seattle area I deal with my own boat plus those that wish to occupy my docks. I have an I/O, which is plug and play. My tenants have the egg beater situation. Whenever I have a problem it is usually semi easy to access and remedy. When these outboards have a problem it has become apparent to me that they are generally unfixable at the dock and have to be hauled to a professional to work on. What are your experiences?

turn back the clock 30 to 40 years ago, you would be insane to have more than 1 mercury outboard on the back of a boat....., things are much different now.

After clocking 5000 hours on my dad's 225 yamaha I am a believer.

I ran small 300 horse Volvo and Yanmar diesels in the commercial parasail business, they couldn't hold a candle to theses Yamahas for reliability and efficiency .

I like a stock 330 Mercruiser for their reliability and affordability but the corrosion factor in saltwater is a big problem after 4 years.not to mention the whole gimble and transom assembly is Junk after 500 hours.

I can tell you now after everything I have learned in 45 years of boating , with 30 years of those being in the commercial parasail business , if I had to do it again , Yamaha 4 stroke 250 s would be hanging on the stern.

My i/o was terrible to work on, cramped, and usually resulted with me on my back in an arched position trying to tighten a bolt I couldn't even see but had to feel.

Have yet to have thay issue on my O/B yet.

If everyone left their inboards alone and didn't obsess with trying to find 15hp more to achieve a 1 mph increase, they'd probably find their inboards are just as reliable as outboards. Very few outboards end up modified beyond what the factory has built. With more fine tuning and more performance comes higher maintenance and increased stress on everything.

I would think outboards go back to the factory service dealers more now with the complexity of the engines? Factory service dealers have the computers and diagnostic gear to isolate any issues quickly. As for accessibility for working on them, well that's pretty obvious which is easier.

Confessed outboard fan,
RR

What did have to work on?
I have a couple buddies with the same 496 motors and they don't have to do squat to them. Were yours modified?

60 hours on twin yam 300 four strokes... only thing I miss is the sound... but being able to hear my music is nice (dry tails were loud)

Comparison. This last weekend at LOTO we went roughly 160 nautical miles during the weekend... I burnt 100 gallons of fuel (half tank)... it was rough so I expected terrible mileage and was happy to find it more than doubled my old 540 with a whipple.

Edit - I used to have to boat conservitely in order to make a run without planning gas stops... now I could easily boat 2-300 miles and never be worried. It's nice.

16 years with my yam 250efi ,last year firstreal problem changed all 3 fuel pumps. all ways runs

Impellers (twice), water pressure sensors, and another senor I can't think of off the top of my head.

No comparison... O/B hands down more reliable and less maintenance costs.