Re: New 15-25 hp outboard. Brand?
If you are looking for reliablity in a new motor. I would not assume that a brand new 4 stroke will be more reliable than a brand new two stroke. My opinion is that the 15 Johnson is pretty rock solid and I would have no fear of taking it deep in the back country. In fact I take several trips a year where I go up one lake 6 miles to a truck portage, then go to a lake on the US/Canada border. This is a 30,000 acre lake and if you run into problems you can be there awhile before you find some help. Cell phones don't work either. You more or less have to wait for help, or hope someone stumbles by. There are a few outfitters that rent boats and provide guides. Reliability and performance are both at a premium because motors are restricted to 25 HP. Here is what I see a lot of up there:<br /><br />1. Lots of Suzuki DT25 Two Stokes (no longer made, and clearly the best performing 25 I have seen)<br />2. Merc 25 Classics (can be fiesty on the troll, but solid on cruise and WOT)<br />3. Johnson 25 two strokes (reliable, but performance is not great compared to other 25s)<br />4. Honda 25s ( seems to be the prefered 4 stroke, and one reason is the weight)<br />5. Yamaha 25 4 strokes. Also light, but two cylinders instead of 3. Slight edge to Honda on performance.<br /><br />On smaller boats, the johnson 15 is most prevelent, but there are a fair number of merc 15 classics as well. 15 four srokes are seen from time to time, but not nearly as much as 4 stroke 25s. <br /><br />I just bought a new boat and went with the Honda 25. So far I like it because it is reasonably light, reliable, quite, trolls nice and economical on fuel. It does not match the suzuki 2 stroke in performance, but it will hang right with the merc 25 and ease away from the johnson 25. Most of the boats are Lund and Alumicraft.<br /><br />Last trip up was a couple weeks ago. We took my friends 1957 14' Crestliner shallow v with a 92 johnson 15. We replaced the benches this winter and the motor is in tip top shape. I think that old stuff can be extremely reliable as long as it is kept in good repair. I would not purchase a used motor and run out to the sticks without running it quite awhile to make sure I trust it.<br /><br />Good luck whichever way you go. Hard to buy a bad motor these days.
