I just got a 2005 15hp yamaha 4-stroke, manual start, tiller. Paid $2300 something for it. I didn't try to haggle the price at all because I wanted the motor and it was hard to find. Apparenlty because of the lawsuit between Mercury and Yamaha, getting Yamaha motors is very difficult right now. When I got that motor, it was literally the last Yamaha the place I bought it from had. They weren't expecting any more until June or July I guess.

If I was feeling more spendy, I would probably have gotten the 20hp Honda with electric trim. Its the same weight as the 15hp which is cool, but it was out of my price range.

So far I've been happy with the Yamaha. It seemed a little rough during the first few hours of running it but it seems to have smoothed out now. The idle is extremely quiet and you can troll at incredibly slow speeds on it. At full throttle its fairly loud, but nothing unreasonable. My boat is a 15' modified V jon and I'd estimate it runs about 25-30mph full speed with just me in the boat. With two guys, two batteries, full tank of gas and a cooler full of water it bogs down to about 15mph.