Lets hear it.<br /> I run a mix of Mercs and Yamahas commercially. For comercial use the Yamahas are hands down better untis and are easier to service/work on. They also have much less part failures than mercs.<br /> For example we have 14 merc 25's bought new in 03. So far we have went through 3 starters, 4 starter solenoids, one tiller handle pulley, 1 ignition coil,alot of vario9us plastic prts that make up the shallow drive sytem, 8 sets of exhaust gaskets, all of the fuel tanks had to be modified to work properly, 3 fuel hoses, and 2 fuel water seperators.<br />We also owned 20 merc 6,8's. They dont go through any parts to speak of, but one motor blew up and needed a rebuild. They where also very sensitive to water as is the 25. On a motor with a choke if the unit ingests water and sucks it up into the carb its easy to fix as you just drain the carb get it started, run it full throttle and apply the choke. This sucks any remaining water through the jets(low speed jets are the a minute problem as a minute amount of watre will foul them) and into the motor curing the problem with out taking the carb off. This practice is impossible because of mercs primer type sytem. Also because the smaller mercs have only one carb and because they have the shifter part of the throttle they are much more complicated under the hood and harder to work on. Taking the carb off a merc is way more difficult than it should be. <br />We have run 6 older johnson 4.5 hp motors. these motors where as reliable as gravity in every way and every bit the equal to a yamaha with the exception of the starter assembly which is by far the worst I have ever seen.<br />Currently we are running a mix of Yamaha6,8,9.9,15 hp with a 14 25's comeing in soon to replace the mercs. the Yamahas havent needed any parts and the only issues we have had with them is related to water ingestion, which is no way related to engine quality and is easily fixed. If I had one thing I could put my finger on that yamaha needs to change its the fact that the gear shift on the 6 and 8 needs to be located on the tiller like a 9.9 or 15 instead of on the side of the motor.<br /> I almost forgot we also owned merc 30 four strokes in 02 and they where garbage. To many problems to mention. What has been every one elses expeireance?
