225 EFI (XLEFI) Spark Problem? Alarms

[jburn25]

2000 225 XLEFI serial number 0T161791, new to me, sitting on a Champion 21'7" bay boat. Sweet rig, and all seemed to check out so I bought it a couple weeks ago. Took it out several times and all was well. Wife and I thought we heard an intermittent alarm several times while cruising, but wasn't persistent, motor ran good, and so wasn't too worried about it. However, boat only running about 4200RPM and about 44mph and felt like it should do better than that with the custom 4 blade prop that it came with so I decided to take it in to local repair guys just to do routine maintenance and check the whole thing out, possible get smaller prop etc.

Long story but 3 weeks later (with very little communication in between) they called and said 2/6 cylinders are not getting any spark and only 1/6 was really getting any good spark. Also told me that they mainly work on Yamaha so before they order a $800 part (ECM?) they figured they'd just stop where they were and let me take it to someone else. All they did was replace an alternator belt that was frayed.

does this sound right? How could the boat have been running so well (decent at least) and only get 2/6 cylinder spark?

I'm hoping to bring it to a certified Mercury mechanic next week, just wondering if any previous experience with this by anyone else?

 

[jburn25]

Basically I'm just wondering if this mechanic is crazy, or if I should expect that he's right and I'm looking at 1k worth of repairs likely. I'm also wondering if I shouldn't just take it back out on the water and run and it see if it picks up where I left it.