good and then really bad day on the lake

[silverspook]

This past Wednesday my wife and I went to table rock lake for a couple of nights the first morning my second fish was a 5.3 pound large-mouth and later that day caught a 17.5 inch small mouth. On the way back to the ramp my motor stuttered and than locked up. No alarms found out latter that one of the valves in the oil unit was clogged. This is a 94 Mariner 150 on a 95 Intimidator. I love the boat but is only in fair condition. Now I have to decide to either have the motor repaired which may cost 4 or 5 grand or try to find a newer motor. Any help would be appreciated thanks

[gambler1]

If you want to keep your boat you should by another motor , that's way to much money for a rebuild plus a newer motor such as an optimax will have much better fuel economy and a good warranty. most rebuilds only get a 1 year warranty where as mercury is offering I think 5 years? personally that is what I would do.

[silverspook]

Thanks how much would a new motor like that run and where would I start looking for one?

[desertrat]

If you want to keep the boat I would repower it. It seems that it would be harder to sale with a blown engine anyway.
Look at this site and see if this helps any.
http://1outboard.com hopefully you get her back running and are good to go.
Sorry to hear about the run of bad luck but most of us have been there at one time or another. It sure is a gut wrenching sound to hear and all you see is $$$$.

[silverspook]

Thanks a lot for the information That is defiantly a sick feeling when one go's out. It sure makes you gun shy with such an investment in your motors and boats. This is such a bad time for this to happen the fishing has been great and is just going to get better. Last year we had such high water the fishing was terrible. At this point after this sickness leaves I will stand back and look at all my options. thank you for your help this is a great sight and I've been proud to be a G man even if its only been a year.

[h2oskiier30]

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by desertrat &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If you want to keep the boat I would repower it. It seems that it would be harder to sale with a blown engine anyway.
Look at this site and see if this helps any.
http://1outboard.com hopefully you get her back running and are good to go.
Sorry to hear about the run of bad luck but most of us have been there at one time or another. It sure is a gut wrenching sound to hear and all you see is $$$$.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Before having 1outboard.com (Blackbird) do any motor work for you, go to Scream and Fly and do a search on them. I'm not going to offer an opinion on them either way since I've never sent them any work, but I would suggest you research them before using them...as well as anyone else you might decide to use for motor work.

Good luck in whatever you decide.

[silverspook]

thanks for the heads up I'll do as you suggested. Thanks for all your input on this. I think I'm going to take my time an weigh all the options. If money were not a problem I would go with a new Mercury but I just retired and with the economy the way it is I'm a little concerned about going into debt. thanks again

[MCarte]

Many of the boat dealers have two and three year old motors still in the shipping crate. They usally sell these very reasonable. I bought a 2000 model 225 EFI in 2003. I went to the dealer and helped him bring the Merc box out of storage. Opened it up...just like christmas!

[silverspook]

I found a demo 150 efi at a local dealer and got a pretty good price on it It was sold as new with a 4 year warranty on it so in a couple of weeks I should be on the water again. My brother and I fished out of his boat last Wed. night under the full moon and paralleled the bank with black spinner baits it was incredible. We fished from 7 till 11pm and put seven fish in the boat with two over 20 inches and a 19 inch spot all of them were footballs. Thanks again for all your input in helping me decide about the motor.