I’ve had the same experience as Travis. The 4-stroke Mercury has some problems that may or may not pop up for each individual engine, but is a decent engine overall. Not as fast/quick as the G2, and especially at lower or idle speeds the G2 got much better fuel economy. On stop-and-go fishing where you restart the engine 20+ times a day, the V8 seems to use a significant amount of fuel just in starting.