Quote:
Originally Posted by snowman
Thanks for all advice. I'm planning on buying a new boat so hoping the unexpected i/o engine problems will not be an issue for several years down the road and covered by a waranty for 5 years.
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For me, the hatred toward I/Os is not just about the unexpected stuff that fails, it's the
expected stuff that drive me nuts. They are maintenance hungry and the annual parts and labor bills for normal maintenance can be substantial. They also have lots of corrosion issues and don't hold their resale value like an OB. A typical I/O annual maintenance schedule includes: changing impeller, changing engine oil and drive oil, inspecting U-joints, gimbal bearing, bellows, and checking alignment (the drive has to come off the boat for these), sanding priming and painting areas of corrosion, changing anodes and other stuff.
Some of the outboards on the market require no maintenance for the first three years and can be Winterized by pushing a button and waiting 15 seconds. When you are done using them, you tilt them up completely clear of the water and you don't have any corrosion issues to deal with. They also automatically drain cooling water completely and won't freeze and crack the engine if the temps drop to 31 F before you Winterize.
Maybe I'm just frustrated because my 3 year old u-joint bellows (that looks perfect in all but one well-hidden spot) failed this weekend and caused a leak into my boat. If I had slipped my boat, I may have had no way to notice this and it could have easily sank my boat while I was away all week. Fortunately, I trailer my boat and noticed a nice stream of white-tinted water (the white comes form emulsified u-joint grease that got mixed really well from the u-joinst spinning in a water bath) when I pulled the garboard plug out after putting the boat on the trailer. Think about how ridiculous the design is that a thin tube of corrugated rubber, that can fail at any time (it's much thinner than a radiator hose, for instance...), is one of the key elements in the I/O for keeping the lake out of your boat. Consider that the failure of that part is normal wear and tear too, and costs around 400 bucks to change because Mercruiser buried it way down inside the heart of the drive. Because of this leak, I can now expect shortened life on a brand new Gimbal bearing I put in this Spring. That's a $100 wasted, but at least I own the tools to change it myself because that would be another 400 bucks for labor, I bet.
Anyway, good luck! There are zillions of happy I/O customers out there, so I'm probably just a grumpy old engineer...