I need to make a decision on a 4 stroke motor, tiller/hand steering, in the 15-25 HP range...

Anyone have any preferences, or reasons to choose one vs. another. I'm looking at Mercury, Honday, and Yamaha...but also even Suzuki based on prices and such.

Just wondering if anyone has gone thru this recently, and has any advice on choosing one over the other...yes, I know warranty and ability to get the motor worked on is a concern...other than those, what else helped you make a decision?

Matt

Hondas and Yamis seem to have the best reputation, but also the highest costs. If I am not mistaken (I often am :) ) Suzuki make all the four strokes that BRP sells under their Johnson brand. I think most will be good motors but you should look into who in you area will service them and what kind of costs are involved in each brand.

My father-in-law has a 15 HP Honda which he loves but he says it can be costly to do the regular maintenance. My Fishing partner has a Merc 25 HP Four on the back of his boat and he needed to have warranty work done on the motor twice since he has owned it (they totally replaced the power-head the second time)He may have just got a bad motor but it has soured him on Mercs.

I have heard nothing but good things about Yamaha. I have been looking and pricing them out as well. I think I'm going to go with a Yamaha as soon as I have some more $$$$

A year and a half ago I went through this process and decided on a Honda 20HP 4 stroke. Not many of the manufactures make a 20HP and the Honda is in the same case as the 15HP and not much more weight. I think on Mercury you have to step from 15 to 25 and the size and weight were too much for my boat. I've had no maintenance problems and it's easy to perform the oil change at home. It's a little more expensive but is pretty comparable to the Mercury and Yamaha. I got one with the electric start and electric trim and tilt to that jacked the price up quite a bit.

I also went through this about 2 years ago and decided on a 30hp honda with power tilt/trim and electric start.

A couple things to look at and think about are: what is the max hp of the boat, what shaft length you need, what features do you want in the motor (power trim/tilt, electric or pull start, etc) and how much you want to spend.

After you have figured out what you want, start comparing engine prices, features, weight and tiller handles. I looked at Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Mercury, Johnson, etc and found that the honda 25/30 were the same weight at 187lbs, had a great tiller handle and both came with power trim/tilt and electric start, Yamaha only made a 25 high thrust model, was over 200lbs and didn't have ptt and electric start, Suzuki's 25/30 were over 200lbs, only the 30 had ptt and elec start and the tiller handle was pretty weak looking, mercury had a 30/40 engine that was about 250lbs, its tiller handle was very weak looking and had heard that was terrible at cold weather starts but now has EFI in their engines so they might be better.

One last note. If you plan on fishing higher elevation lakes in the sierra's, buy a second lower pitched prop. Because I fish lakes from 0 to 8000', I have found that I needed 3 props. One for 0-3000', one for 3000-6000' and one for heavy loads or lakes above 6000'. Elevation takes away about 3% of your power per 1000' feet.