My 2011 300 XS's currently have 350 hours on the clock. Well maintained every season, never had any issue with them.

Time to replace the boat, I assume that prospective buyers would prefer lower hours on the engines.

I am curious to hear your thoughts on what you consider to be high hours if you are considering buying a used boat?

Doesn't sound like a ton of hours. The question is what the RPM breakdown looks like.

I had the same approach when discussing it with a potential buyer stating that 97 % of the hours were done at low rpm (800-2000).

The reply was, if you are selling a Ferrari with 30,000 miles, no one will care about the rpm data, it's too high mileage.

I would say it depends on which motors. I don't know anything about outboards but 300hrs on blue motors would be high hours but 300 on black motors would be no big deal.

Break it down to years. You have 60-70 hours per year roughly. That sounds like a lot of boating per year. If it was 350 hours on a 2000 then it sounds minimal. It's all relative. When I should my 83 century it had about 350 hours on the 440 in it. Ran strong and was considered very low hours. The buyer sounds very fussy or a tire kicker. I wouldnt worry about it, someone will buy it with those hours.

Depends how well its all been maintained from day one. Customers boats that I have maintained with 1200 hours in better condition and running conditions than new customers boats with 50 hours on it.

97 % of hours at 800 to 2000 rpms is not were an engine should spend its time to help with motor longevity. Actually that is like lugging and trolling the engine all the time.. Kind of like sitting idling your car 97 % time. Not going to last. Most marine engine run rich at very low rpm's and 2000 rpms is lugging a marine engine. That's like running your car up a steep hill all day in 5 the gear lugging the hell out of it.

You want marine engine that has ran most of its time at 70 to 75 % of its duty cycle.

Just an Example MAX - WOT 6000 RPM's - a good place to see rpms at would be 4000 to 4500 most of its run times.

I'm curious about this. Blue motors are built with better parts, shouldn't they last longer? Or is this because black motors don't make enough power to hurt themselves?

A better measure would be pounds of fuel used over the life of the engine.

Blue motors need the top end gone thru every 300-350 hours. Black motors are basically production truck engines and meant to run forever.

Depending on the builder, some 1 hour is high...