Who has PERSONALLY experienced serious engine failure in the first 3-5 years

[bassfan]

But the standout is the unreliability of Etecs - too many require repairs / rebuilds / injectors.

Chris

Hopefully, the etec issues relate more to their earlier models and have since been sorted, cos I've just layed down my hard earned on a 2010 model 90hp.

[Jabiru658]

I kind of doubt you would get too many old fashioned carby 2 strokes that have had a major drama from new

Yah I thought that too (although my Honda 4 strokes been very reliable) but...

my 6 hours of running time 3 cylinder Yamaha 30 horse (old fashioned carby 2 stroke) failed out in the middle of the lake on me. It was a simple fault, a missing locking clip on a y shaped bit of metal that makes a rod move that links to the levers on the carbies (but not something I was able to fix out on the water).

All I knew was that suddenly the twist throttle felt very stiff and wouldn't move more than about 10% of it's normal travel and the engine wouldn't start.

I used the electric to get back to the closest boat ramp, dragged the boat up onto the shore as far as possible, got a lift around to the other boat ramp I'd launched from (thanks good samaratin) brought my ute and trailer back and winched it back on.

Took it to the dealers and it took them about 60minutes to find out what was wrong and 30 seconds to fix it. They said they couldn't find the circlip sort of thingy anywhere in the engine and they could only assume it hadn't been put on at the factory.

I voted E-Tech in the poll however as I when was out boating with a mate of mine and his E-Tech started running rough and then died on us. I'm not sure of the details but it required some rebuilding.

[myusernam]

sort of a stupid poll lumping merc 2 and fours together - two totally different engines and technologies.
and for that matter even different engines in the same group. ed v6 ficht gen1 and 2's blew up, but the v4's never did. Different hp engines can even be made by different manufacturers and rebadged. Like the jono 140 was a suzuki.

[ozscott]

Why not lump them in. I did the same with yamaha. Manufacturers have to get it right across their entire range. We have a reaonable idea of the breakup of sales for each brand and now we have failure rates for those brands. We are running our own more direct jp morgan and the results are pretty telling. Cheers

[Dave_H]

Oz, looking back through this thread I spoke of the ills of my Brother In Law's brand new Evinrude around twelve months ago. The problem was eventually tracked down to some plastic production swarf in the oil tank set-up that had been (from what I understand) drawn into the line or some filter somewhere.... causing the said alarms/limp home mode I spoke of previously.

Since that has been fixed I cannot stop the b*gger raving about how good it is....!!!! I had put a vote there for the Etec however the installation appears to have been let down by an external factor, so probably worth disregarding the vote I put there towards the Evinrude. Dunno if I can remove the vote I put there?

Regards,

Dave.

[ozscott]

Thanks Dave. Hopefully a mod will read your post and delete your vote. BRP need all the help they can get on this poll. Cheers

[cormorant]

I think a production fault that took ages and repeated fixes still qualifies as not good enough out of the box regardless of brand..

Can only hope they put it in the database and passed it back to the factory for all dealers so the next person to experience it gets a quicker resolution. Nice when the dealers actually persist and solve it rather than blow you off.

Hope they fixed him up with a heap of extra oil or accessories for all his hassle.

[Beatsworkin2]

Had Mercs all my life grandad dad included never a problem last boat 1600 hrs just bought new boat 6 months ago 150 etec awesome but will see when it gets over 500 hours on it wot is going to do so far about 120hrs and running great and I will never buy a Honda as there cars are s$$$ can't wait for a Toyota outboard

[hellfish]

Hey Beatsworkin2. Do a bit of googling for Toyota and Yamaha Motor Companies and you'll find out just how much cross development they do and how much investment each company has made in the other. Ya Toyota outboard is sorta already out there.

[Lucky Loz]

Has anyone mentioned the fact that if a lot more people bought E-Tec's , then the percentage of faults will be higher because a lot more were bought. To really get ANY value out of this poll , you would have to poll how many people bought each type of motor .

[theangryangler]

I voted my yamaha i used to have. not really a serious failure but it did leave me stranded near curtin reef at 5pm when a swell rolled thru.
Had to be rescued/towed back with VMR, so to me it was a big issue for me at the time
Yamaha 4 stroke 60 , 28 hours all services done and it just died no alarms nothing!! everything checked out ok just would not
fire. Next day at the mechanics started fine and never had a issue again! no alarms or anything when plugged in either......
still to this day dont know what it was........

[WalrusLike]

Uneducated guess would be a temporary fuel blockage? Blocked nozzle? Any other sort of fault would repeat I would think?

[ozscott]

Has anyone mentioned the fact that if a lot more people bought E-Tec's , then the percentage of faults will be higher because a lot more were bought. To really get ANY value out of this poll , you would have to poll how many people bought each type of motor .

Really? Where are the figures for that Lucky? I thought Yammy still sold the most motors...

My understanding is that Yammy sells the most motors worldwide and certainly in Australia I see way more Yammy 4 stroke than ETEC at the ramps and on pro-boats...cant imagine that is seriously in dispute but let me know...

Cheers

[fisho64]

still to this day dont know what it was........

safety clip/kill switch :-)

[ozscott]

... I have done that...

Cheers