Merc 500R vs 520/XR
 

This is something I've been thinking about lately. With the price of a Merc 520EFI/XR combo being about $40k and the Merc 500R being about $70k, at what price do you still save money going with outboards? Seeing all the new boats being built with twin outboards on them I've been asking myself this question a lot.

It's not about price. Outboards have just eclipsed stern drives in terms of capability and efficiency.

Every manufacturer is making outboard powered products now. Customers are demanding them.

Its all in the engineering, no one has really been working on new clean sheet designs for inboards, naturally the OB's will be more efficient since they are new, better designs.


Comes with a BIG price tag though.

I run the dog sh*t out of my 540s. Love them. Full throttle most of the time 😬

I am not a fan of egg-beaters on boats, IMHO they have no 'soul', but I perfectly understand the logic behind them, and of course for salt water use the ease of maintenance is greatly appreciated.

Eggbeaters are like a vanilla wife.... reliable, practicle , will have dinner on the table, takes care of the kids, wakes up early to make you breakfast and lunch, mostly likes missionary.
Inboards are like the ditry little slut you pick up at a bar, buy her drinks all night cause she`s a lush, gets drunk and loud and Ferile under the sheets and you wake up with your wallet gone in the morning wondering what in the hell happened and why your dick burns when you pee.

HOLY F*CK!!! I’m DYIN!!!!! 😂😂😂

that was absolutely perfect.

that should be printed and framed at all custom big HP shops.

classic. Just classic.

agreed!!

Hall of Fame post !!!!!!!

.


I'm liking the idea of this

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...9615fcff83.png

Techman,

Have they really? When I see a CC with five 450s being passed by an inboard with two 1075s, it's really hard not to wonder which one is actually consuming more fuel. And there's no way you're gong to convince me that the maintenance on five OBs is less than on two blower motors. Ain't gonna happen.

It's not about cost, efficiency or capability. It's about which one is easier to sell to buyers. It's really obvious that open bows are easier to sell to doe-eyed now boaters. Salesmen tell them they can fit more people on the boat and it's easier to get them in and out at the docks. It's way easier than telling them they will have to learn how to dock a boat properly. They also neglect to tell them that their guests will be less comfortable and the ride will be considerably rougher for those up front. In short, salesmen lie. The profits from five 450s is considerably higher than it is for 1100 QC4Vs, simply on sheer quantities alone. And most consumers aren't willing to do their research first. They just nod their heads and sign the check.

THAT..... Is why OBs are winning the game ATM.

Thanks. Brad.

Hi Brad,

Salesmen trickery is not why outboards are outselling IO's. Yes, most salesmen lie. But pick any boat manufacturer out there and see how many still offer an inboard option.

Can you really blame engine manufacturers for being in the profit business? There isn't a conspiracy against IO's it's just simple math.

Peace!!

Techman,

I don't disagree with that. MFRs will follow the profit. As a full-throated capitalist, I wholly align with that. But the notion that consumers are choosing OBs over IBs because of maintenance, efficiency or upfront cost only signals a sales force' willingness to lie and consumers gullibility.

Thanks. Brad.

I don't see folks stroking a check for a new quad or quint 450/500 CC as being new/gullible boaters. More times than not they have been there, done that with big blown inboard powered boats, are a bit longer in the teeth, and their boating priorities have changed. They know what they want.

Let's hope the educated buyers come back in droves at some point. The Mercury racing catalog on the IO side has some pretty sweet stuff.

Things would be vastly different if your choices were only one or two engines per boat. Remember when a 8'6" beam was the sweet spot?

Next up....Midnight express offers at 40' beam goliath with a 20 outboard option! It will be parked in the cruise ship terminal.

Just on our small Poker Run 2 weeks ago- we had 3 OB prop shafts break. All on OB cats.

Meanwhile all M6 & M8 drives are all completely fine.

I am stealing this one.

Dan, that was pure gold 😂

I understand why the dolled up fishing boats have outboards. Center consoles were made for outboards and need a lot of them to push those oversized turds so let's leave them out of the equation. Let's leave that discussion to the owners over on thehulltruth :gfight:

Outboard cats though... two 500Rs are $140k and two 520EFI/XRs are $80k. For the leftover $60k you can buy two new spare 520EFI crate engines, 5 spare drives, or a **** load of fuel. On top of that, the boat will be better balanced, have a usable transom, not have two ugly eggbeaters clipped on the back, and sound 1000x better. If you boat in saltwater, put a couple freshwater flush kits on it to flush after a run. It doesn't take that long to hook up a hose and do it.

You still have to flush OB's. Just a small point.

Knot,

There are certainly those out there. But, mostly, what I’ve seen are a bunch of 30 somethings who have discovered a liking of boating and a depth to their credit that makes it all possible. Overwhelmingly, the age of the two demographics shows the older crowd likes loud inboards with real HP, and the younger crowd likes the quiet OBs in double triplicate to make up for a lack in individual HP. What I’ve noticed is that the older crowd seems to have the resources to just let somebody else shoulder the headaches of maintaining their beasts, and the younger crowd is gullible enough to believe maintaining five OBs is easier and cheaper than maintaining two IBs.

All good, though. Just as with the first rule in a gunfight is to have a gun, the first rule in being a boater is HAVING a boat. We have a friend with a pontoon. And while we give him crap for owning a complete waste of mineral resources, we certainly appreciate he brought a place to hang the grill.

Thanks. Brad.

I kind of doubt that many of the people who own a 4-5 motor CC is doing their own maintenance, or for that matter financing much of a 700-1Mil boat.

That is a whole different level of income stream then us guys messing with old I/O's.

The “older crowd” were probably brought up with inboards, at a time when a 200hp outboard was the biggest thing available. I’ll bet they (sorry, we…..) still prefer 80’s music too. Not saying they are reliving their childhood or having a mid life crisis but it’s what they always loved about boating and always will. Nothing wrong with that.

Also, if people with half a million, or a million, to dump on a depreciating toy are so inexperienced and naive enough to buy a boat based on what a salesman said, they deserve what they get. As Gordon Gecko said, “a fool and his money were lucky to get together in the first place.”

My 20c worth. :)

RR

yes on flushing but no need for added penicillin to make sure you got all the "salt" out/off LOL

From the guys who used to be on here a long ago, I'm seeing the opposite. A lot of the guys on here got old and went to center consoles. Manufacturers followed them to that market to follow the money. It's easier to sell less boats for more money so they abandoned their original market instead of investing in scaling up or innovating to build more efficiently.

There's a huge gap in the sport boat market where the interested buyers are late 20s-early 40s but builders and Mercury are ignoring them to go after a tiny demographic with large budgets. As people pass away that wealth will get divided up more and more with the demographic getting even smaller and smaller.

Edit: There's a reason Yamaha is selling more boats than anyone else and I won't feel bad for any manufacturer that has their niche market dry up again.

I've had both I/O and OB now. 700SCi/NXT in my last boat and 450Rs on this boat. Both have been solid reliable power packages provided I maintained them. The ease of maintenance with the OBs is night and day though, oil changes, drive fluid changes, any other misc. service has definitely been easier to perform on my OBs. I miss my 700s at times, they sounded amazing and had great "hit" when you pushed the sticks. If given the choice again though, I'd still pick the OBs. For my style of boating they have worked great.

I could get those 3 boats out of the water, replace their lower units and get them back in the water during the lunch break at the poker run.

While M6 and M8 drives are stout, what usually sits in front of them needs frequent rebuilds

Check out the Borden Light PR thread Matt T just posted up.

Shout out to the NE Hi-Po gang for keeping the loud boats in play.

Silly kids lets get this right outboards are for bass and pontoon boats..... inboards for speed boats with thru hull exaust!

x 2 !!!

Sure saw a lot of older men running multi engine C.C.at Boyne Thunder.

No young people I know personally are running a 5x OB setup. Unless you run in the right crowd in Miami, that is not at all common. Most big multi engine boats are still old guys.

Most of my crew run 28-35s with twin 300s. The most reliable hp of OBs and enough size to handle the bay plus bring along 10 folks. We really like backing up on sandbars, which would be challenging in an I/O.

Hogie,

I’ll admit, nearly the entirety of my boating is done on either Cumberland or Caesar Creek (an overgrown mud puddle in Ohio). But, from what I’ve seen, the average owner of OB CCs are at least 10-15 yrs younger than the larger IB powerboats. I very often wonder if it isn’t daddy’s boat, they are so young sometimes.

My point is that the majority of the selling points for quad OB CCs are outright myths, offered up to make an upsell. Again, there’s no way you’re going to convince me that maintaining 4-5 OB is easier or cheaper than a couple of big IBs, and the upfront cost leaves plenty of room for maintaining the IBs down the road. There’s also no way they are more efficient. At the end of the day, HP means fuel. Period.

Thanks. Brad.

Youtube videos of haulover inlet boats are not all the norm. For every one of those boats there’s a hundred boats with twin 300s.

I could flip my 800hr motors for 20k and buy sub 100hr 2023s for 40k. Get that deal done and motors swapped in 3 days. Really getting hard to find someone down here that wants to crawl into a bilge.

I inquired about getting the 330 MPIs in my 330ss converted to closed cooling. The most reasonable $/hr shop down here that I use wanted $6k for the job.

A 496 might give you comparable hours and corrosion resistance as an outboard but those haven’t even been built in a decade?

Not to mention Chad that another 450R boat didn't make the event that day because it had an engine that wouldn't run right the night before the event. All told there were 4 modern 4 stroke Merc (400/450) outboard cats that either didn't make the run or didn't make it to the last stop. I'm not bashing on Mercury product, as it powers every boat I currently own and couldn't be happier with it. I'm just stating that you're still going to miss plenty of days of boating due to failures whether you own a high-performance outboard or inboard package. I've owned just about every high-performance outboard and inboard package combination there is and none of them are as reliable as the standard consumer outboard or inboard packages Mercury offers. If you want to go fast, you're going to deal with mechanical issues, period.

agreed… lol funny thing is I was gonna go into that in my post but wanted to keep it short

Couple of things-the price you are using for the 520 must be engine only, because the complete package with XR Sportmaster drive and ITS will be over $70K

Sterndrive is rated at the crank, OB is at the propshaft. Those two turns are costly (~8%), so the sterndrive at propshaft will be at a slight disadvantage. Also, sterndrive sound compliance is the boatbuilder’s responsibility, and power will go down if adding enough sound abatement to meet legal levels. OB sound compliance is engine mfg’s responsibility, and the 500R meets US and EU sound levels.

520 turns 5200 RPM, 500R turns 6600 RPM. Average gear ratio for 520 is 1.50:1, all 500R’s are 1.60:1, so very close, but when you couple 6600 with 1.60, you can pull a shorter pitch prop over the larger RPM range, which is why the OB cats appeal, because they pull nicely midrange to top.

520 burns 42 GPH@5200, 500R burns ~55 GPH@6600. This is due to the late burn from late spark for running pump gas with boost. The NA 520 is lean and mean, and actually very green. The low specific output allows this.

520 is 8.6L (60.5 HP/L) and runs on 87 octane , 500R is 4.6L (108.7 HP/L) and runs on 89 octane.

520/XR package has 2 years of warranty, a 65 amp alternator and weighs 1218 lbs dry, so a twin package would weigh 2236 dry.
500R has 3 years of warranty with an option to buy up to 5 more, a 115 amp alternator and the 20” model weighs 720 lbs dry, so a twin package would weigh 1440 dry. Basically 800 lbs difference, so triple 500R’s would still weigh less than twin 520’s. That’s significant.

I’ve spent time with both packages, and they each have performance appeal. The fact that both packages are DTS makes each a pleasure to drive; great throttle response and smooth, effortless shifting. If you’ve never driven a DTS package, you owe it to yourself to try it out.

Thank you for your post with the comparison. I was basing the price without ITS added and standard XR drive https://www.proboats.com/engines-for...California-US/

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...7e6f6194f1.png
3x these gets you 3x318hp less than 90k. Weighs 1600lbs and turns 6400.

No way twin 520s last longer than this setup or cost you less to service. 520s slower too.

But do you have 3 props in your back pocket?… not like you’re going to run to Bass Pro Shops and pick up something that will work….as much of a POS an XR
is, and when it has a catastrophic failure, you don’t loose an expensive, uncommon prop;)

That's what the Kiekhaefer spare prop holders that you find in many cats are for.