posted 03-20-2003 12:56 AM ET (US)        

Thank you for your input

posted 03-25-2003 09:19 AM ET (US)            

I have the 2000 150hp Optimax (saltwater series if it matters) on my 2000 18' Outrage. While I have only had the boat for 1 year we experianced no problems and the previous owner (who I would buy another boat from) also had flawless performance.

The prior owner did mention that there was a recall on the chip that in 2001 and the chip was replaced when he had it in for service, but he had noticed no performance issues either before or after the replacement. Because the chip records operating information (hours, time at various RPMs, etc.) what the chip replacement really did was cause this information to be lost for the first 70 hours put on the engine.

posted 03-31-2003 08:05 AM ET (US)            

I see here and on other boards people asking if they know if a specific model year and Horsepower and how that motor is overall. Recalls, upgrades, fixes, etc etc.

If the technology of the motor has fundamental flaws that need many new upgrades or changes to get them right, I personally would stay far away from it. It's not like there isn't a choice, but you are dealing with technology that was being fixed "on the go" by the manufacturer. I'm not talking about little fixes, but in the case of Opti's and Fichts, the fixed where ass backward hurried repairs/upgrades to keep the technology afloat.

When someone says, "oh the '99 150hp Opti's where good" but we all know that the 200hp's were disasters,then you can read between the lines. Don't hunt for a model year or horsepower rating within a quagmire of bad technology. If you are going to keep the boat for many years, you are, in my opinion, playing Russian Roulette. If you will resell the boat, then the prospective buyers are going to wonder and fret over exactly what you are trying to determine about this model year.

Why not find a boat with an engine with Proven successful technology ? You will enjoy your boat many times over.

Do a search on the internet for real and numerous Optimax nightmare stories. I am not talking about a couple of cases someone will ultimately use on a successful motor to discredit them. I am speaking of hundreds of problems that ruined many a season.

You can start with that of Jurisprudenze right here on our site. But don't stop there.

Personally I like:

Suzuki EFI and Carb.
Johnson Carb.
Merc: EFI and Carb.
Yamaha EFI, DFI and Carb.

posted 04-01-2003 07:07 AM ET (US)            

If we were talking about minor glitches or small recalls things that is one thing, but to release technology that was so fundamentally flawed, then spending years screwing people as they try to work it out is simply wrong.

I find the boating public to be very unforgiving about things like this. Personally, if I was an '97-'01 Ficht owner or a '98-'01 Optimax owner, it would be fresh in my head.

posted 04-01-2003 01:56 PM ET (US)            

This reminds me of a great story from auto racing. A team was entering a Shelby AC Cobra in a 24-hour endurance race (Sebring?). They smashed up their car just a day or so before the race. At that time a car rental agency had the classic Cobra in its rental fleet. The racers rented a new Cobra for the weekend, disconnected the speedometer cable, and ran it for 24-hours in the race!

posted 04-01-2003 10:45 PM ET (US)            

In the case of outboards, a charge is often heard that the manufacturers are negligent and are intentionally shipping untested products in order to let an unsuspecting buyer become the final quality control checker.

The level of quality in manufacturing in some industries now does approach perfection. It is very normal for a automobile engine to run 150,000 miles with no major repairs or failures. This was unheard of in the 1970's.

In manufacturing a complex product, it is difficult to keep the quality at such high levels. Recently an automotive company began to see a trend of failures in the field in one of their cars. After much investigation, the problem was traced to the assembly line, where the installation of a single particular bolt was being done with too much torque. This was the cause of the failures in the field a few months later!

And don't forget that in many cases the motivating factor for the complex and expensive re-design of the outboard engine has been to satisfy the requirements of pollution emissions in one particular state in the union who arbitrarily imposed a schedule of deadlines and emission levels.

posted 04-02-2003 06:39 AM ET (US)            

Just like with the Automotive industry, the Japanese are the culprits of making higher quality products of both old and new technology.

Yamaha's release of new V6 EFI technology in '97, V6 DFI in '02 and V6 4 stroke in '02 was without the plethora of problems experienced by Merc and Evinrude. This pains me to see, as I always want to "buy American" but to me America always used this motto with quality on their side.

I'm afraid this has changed and "buy American" stands alone as a motto with no real strong reason other than, it's just good to do. This may sound crazy, but since we once made the highest quality products in the world and were proud of it, I think it's more American to buy any product of quality, than just blind loyalty to the country.

It took a good case of "ass whooping" in the 80's to raise our quality standards closer to that of our Japanese counter parts.

We still are behind them, and the data from various manufacturing fields proves this to be painfully true.

In the late 80's and early 90's we began to wonder how it is that they made products better than us, so we employed the management tools of the Japanese, who learned it from two American's, W. Edwards Deming and JM Juran.

As far as Outboards are concerned, I think you all know where I stand. When Merc gave up the V6 4 Stroke race and succummed to buying Yamaha powerheads, it pained me. Merc has a huge R&D department and many decades of experience on their side, yet they still lost. Why? It's probably a long story.

posted 04-02-2003 09:22 AM ET (US)            

At least in the case of Mercury, you could attribute a higher number of failures reported to the fact that they are the market leader and thus deliver more engines that might fail.

On-line stories of other brand failures are rare, but they are there. Honda has been mentioned, but of course not as often as Mercury. This is reasonable because the volume of Honda engines being sold is much lower that that of Mercury, perhaps only a tenth the volume.

I don't think I have heard of a Tohatsu engine going bad. That might be because their market share is so tiny that their failures just don't attract attention.

I also find it curious that I have never heard anyone accuse Yamaha of producing untested products and foisting them on an unsuspecting buying public back in the 1980's and 1990's. The Yamaha paint and corrosion protection was clearly sub-standard, and failure to use stainless steel for critical lower unit components often required expensive repairs or replacement of the engine. Nor do I recall anyone ever saying that Yamaha replaced the defective components for free under an extended warranty, or that Yamaha sent them new components for field replacement before failure.

What Yamaha appears to have done was to learn from the mistakes they made selling outboards into this market and slowly introduce better materials and techniques into their engines. The market has given them a pass on their earlier problems.

I have heard many people decry that they'll never buy another GM car again based on a problem they had back in 1975 with a diesel engine powered passenger car.

My wife used to own a Honda Prelude and there was no amount of money and no Honda mechanic alive that could make the brakes on that car work properly---they were a well known problem. Yet I have never heard anyone say "I will never buy another Honda."

posted 04-02-2003 09:35 AM ET (US)            

Mercury has always been a performance oriented company. They use racing as a means to put their development ideas to the test and find weaknesses in the technology. With the fourstrokes, the performance just was not there that could compete successfully with EFI or DFI two strokes. Merc went with DFI as a means to meat the CARB and EPA standards without sacrificing performance. But, when other makers came out with their four strokes, and Mercury saw the market penetration they were gaining, and that buyers were willing to give up some of that performance, Mercury then came into the 4 stroke game a bit late. Their strategy to share components with other manufacturers lets them play the four stroke game, retain makret share, while developing their own 4 stroke products with newer technology that will leapfrog the competition with respect to performance.

posted 04-02-2003 08:08 PM ET (US)            

Yamaha's "design" flaw took at least 10 years to show itself, not like in the first months out of the box.

I'm sorry but that's apples and oranges.

While no one has hard statistical data on these problems, anyone who reads the "web" and peruses many of the boaters websites can see what I mean. I'd very surprised if they didn't reach the same conclusion as I.
I have the luxury of meandering around many boat yards and boat shops in the Northeast. (I'm on the road weekly) When a 25 year mechanics admit to me that the Optimax's are poorly designed and gives examples of boaters who are on wits end with their engines, (similarly to Jurisprudenze) you start to build your own database.

I'm not using just a case here or a case there to bolster my argument, I am talking about many problems of similar design and nature.

To me, evidence of my opinions is with the resale value of say a 25' Center Console boat. Nearly every broker I spoke with during my search for a larger boat claimed that boats with Yamaha's command a significant premium over those with Optimax's or Fichts. (in fact '97-00 Fichts were only worth their lowerunits.)

FWIW, I am only refering to large V6 outboards. I know nothing of the reliabilty of med to small outboards.