1998 175 FICHT??

[Shocker87]

I’ve heard all of the horror stories about these motors but I thought I would ask for myself!
A reputable outboard shop near me has one of these with 180 hours on it and he told me today that he is going to have his guys run the engine in the morning just to verify there is no fault codes.. He hasn’t given me a price on it yet. Thoughts on this particular motor? Thx!

[ChampioNman]

Thanks but no thanks.

[JR19]

Run Forrest run....even if its in perfect shape if you had an issue down the road some parts are darn near impossible to find. Also there is not many tech's out there with extensive knowledge that know how to properly work on them. If my memory is correct among Evinrude tech's the 1998 150's are often refereed to as a bastard motor because the particular design/model was only made 1 year...also something to think about. There is a reason why a 22 year old motor only has 180 hours. It's a ticking time bomb that someone has not lit the fuse on very often. Sadly that motor is probably worth more in parts than as a running motor.

[bighare]

Lots more money to be made parting this one out than buying as a whole.
low retail is $1600.

[clayshooter]

What’s the dealer paying you to haul it away.? Seriously, not worth the troubles unless you are a well qualified technical mechanical person. And even then, parts are already scarce.!!

[cwalsh]

I had a 1998 Ranger 518DVS with 175 FICHT, J175FTLECS. I bought the boat with 120hrs despite everyone's advice to not buy with that motor. I owned the boat for 2 years and for the most part it was a great running motor, it pushed that heavy ranger to 64gps with just me in it. I had to rebuild the fuel pump because the boat sat for 4 years before me buying, I think I paid a marina around $500, then I had a rectifier go bad, that was almost $800 but was relatively easy to change, did that myself. The last issue I had was I was getting false codes and had to send the ECM/EMM out to I think it was DFI technology and I sent my PDP as well to have that looked at, this cost me if I remember correctly around $700. After those things were done the boat ran flawlessly but I was always concerned everytime on the water on whether something was going to go wrong. I sold the boat and never heard from the gentleman who bought it, who know still may be running like a champ. The guy at DFI said I had replaced and fixed most of what goes bad and that possibly around the 250hr mark I may be replacing the power pack. One other thing to note is I had a tag attached to my heads showing that it been warranty/upgraded to the pinned heads, not sure what this was but I would check for that as well. I sold the boat and bought brand new, sometimes I wish I kept the old girl because the boat was like finding something in a time capsul, everything was as flawless as my brand new ranger was. Oh so if you buy it and need a spare rectifier, I have one I would love to sell, lol. I found a used one on Ebay and bought incase I ever needed it.

[krindgen]

I believe a 98 would be better than a 99 and up. I ran one for 18yrs suffering from nothing but dumass operator error on my part. I was lucky, was a reliable motor for me. But, you'd live with the thoughts, every trip out, "I wonder if this is gonna be the day?"

[Shocker87]

Thx for the replies

[06 SB]

Oh Hell NO!

[Bassalive]

I had a 1999 150 Ficht, and actually it wasn't that bad other than a stretch of stupid issues that caused down time.
I did sell it because I had the oportunity, and with the numerous issues related to the untested technology, I had a feeling it was just a matter of time before it was worthless....