Out To Pasture: Repair or Replace Your Tired Outboard?

Published: Wednesday, December 12, 2018
By: John Tiger

With winter and boating down-time, it’s a good time to take stock of your boat’s powerplant and make some solid decisions for next season. Your outboard has powered your family boat faithfully with few mishaps for many years. Maybe yours is a lil’ kicker, a mid-sized 70-horse, or even a 200+ horsepower V-6 powerhouse. Whatever your pleasure, outboard owners are eventually faced with a decision — rebuild or open the checkbook and buy brand new?

Buying a new outboard today is a very large commitment, especially for those who might only use their boat just a few times per summer. Repairing what you have or buying a nice rebuilt engine can be a reasonable alternative. However, there’s more to it than the initial cash outlay. Are newer outboards radically improved compared to twenty years ago? Newer four-stroke and direct-injected two-stroke outboards have much more sophisticated fuel management systems, and like today’s cars, pollute significantly less than those made even ten years ago. In the end, the bottom line is: are they worth their price tag, especially for a “toy” that likely gets used less than one total month per year?

How old is “old”?

Your outboard, depending on its age and horsepower size, may be an ancient mariner or it may already have most of today’s engines’ features and benefits. If yours is an ’80s or later, chances are it has:

No overboard fuel drains; these were eliminated in the early 1970s. Prior to that, unburned fuel that never made it into the engine was simply drained into the water.
Power trim and tilt (very handy for skiing, fishing, and even docking and storage).
Electronic oil injection (makes for much easier fuel-ups, and pollutes far less than pre-mixing gas and oil).
Primer starting (vs. chokes; an electric primer shoots fuel into the carburetors, making cold starts much quicker and easier).
Sound-deadened cowl exhaust; outboards built in the 1970s and prior were much louder.
Electronic Fuel Injection: EFI makes an outboard easier to start and run, less smoky, and better on fuel, as well as just a bit better than a carbureted engine when it comes to pollution.

If your engine has some or all of these features, then there are only two significant advantages that buying a brand-new engine could give you. Outboard manufacturers have been — since 1996 — forced by the EPA to design, build, and sell engines that pollute less. As a result, since the late 1990s, most outboards have either been of the four-stroke variety, or two-strokes that use DFI — direct fuel injection. Like older outboards, these DFI engines use an oil-burning two-stroke design, but they inject the fuel/air and oil charge directly into the cylinder with such high precision and timing that the result is a dramatic drop in emissions, and an equally dramatic rise in fuel economy, as well as less oil use. What’s that all mean? Simply, today’s four-stroke and DFI two-stroke outboards:

Burn between 35% and 50% less fuel than their older carbureted brothers.
Reduce emissions pollution an equal amount.
Are very comparable to newer cars in ease of starting and running quality.

Cost Differences

What’s the cost of buying new compared to simply repairing or rebuilding what you have? Let’s look at the meat of the market — mid-sized outboards, in the 90-to-115hp range. A typical new mid-sized outboard will cost you at least $8000 if purchased from a discount dealer, and more like $9000-plus if purchased from a local full-service dealer. Don’t forget rigging and installation, typically adding another $1000 to the tab. Rebuilding your current engine of the same size might cost about $2500 or so — or about a third of the cost of a new engine. Buying a rebuilt engine, backed by a reputable dealer of course, would split that difference, or about $3000 to $4000. That difference will buy a lot of gas, so consider carefully.

What’s the Right Answer?

There’s a lot to consider, a lot at stake. Money, family time, environmental consciousness; these are all valid concerns.

Your budget may not permit buying a new outboard. In that case, rebuilding what you have may be your only course.
If you’re concerned about reducing emissions and aquatic pollution, a new DFI two-stroke or four-stroke engine, despite the high initial cost, may be for you.
Regardless of how much you use the engine, the initial cost differences between buying new and repairing old are so large that “potential fuel savings” with a new engine — no matter how seemingly attractive — will be negligible in the long run. So, this consideration should be
low on your list, unless fuel prices rise dramatically.
Consider your local dealer and his availability, and the time you actually have to use your boat. If you’re like most, you need that outboard to run properly every time because there’s family and friends wanting to have fun with it, usually NOW, not two weeks from now. In this case, a new engine may be a wise investment, because reliability is paramount. Though it’s not popular to say, it’s simply human nature that you’re likely to get quicker service turnaround from your local dealer if you buy a new engine. This should be considered if you’re thinking of saving a few bucks buying from a discount dealer; will you be happy about bringing it to that dealer for service if he’s hundreds of miles away? Will your local dealer be happy to service it if you didn’t buy it from him?
If you’re considering rebuilding, talk you your local dealer about it. Get firm cost estimates, and ask about a warranty. If your engine is older than 1985 or so, forget it. It’s too old, parts likely too scarce, and technology is way out of date. If it’s a later ’80s or younger engine with some or all of the features previously mentioned, and a new engine is out of the question, rebuilding is a good option that will add more years to your old outboard’s life.
If you’re thinking about buying used, be extremely careful. If you’re not an outboard expert, and don’t have the expertise, experience, and tools necessary to completely check out potential engines (with diagnostic checks like compression testing, spark testing, etc.), then direct your purchase to a dealer, who can give a guarantee with a used or rebuilt unit. Without this assurance, you are asking for trouble. Like cars, used engines can be cream puffs or piles of trouble. Even better would be to have a dealer rebuild a used engine for you; you’ll pay a bit more, but basically have a new engine at a fraction of the price of new.
Finally, consider the “new engine” factor — that is, there’s nothing quite like a new engine. It starts easier, runs nicer, idles better, and shifts more smoothly. For many, the “Wow, its new” factor is enough to head down to the dealer to check out the new iron.