Optimax outboards?
- Thread starter coopsie
- Start date
Battle Bay
Member
Not a big fan of used opti engines, if the guy before you did not keep up with the servicing then you have bought yourself a money pit. Also Mercury only ships one day out of there main warehouse in fond de lac. which means if you are broken down and miss that order date you will be down for two weeks.
I have a 2003 opti 200 and have ran it for 4 seasons. bought it used from Alpine morrison marine in Saanichton so i can testify as an actual owner. These are two stroke direct injected engines, (fuel is injected directly into the cylinder head along with compressed air) run very clean, no blue smoke at start up, start right up, with tons of power and great power/weight , and yes the fuel economy is awesome. I have had no issues with it so far but it does get flushed and cleaned every trip.
If your looking at used one, ask for the computer print out. It will tell you how many hours at the different rpms it has run and if it has thrown any codes for problems.
There were issues with the earlier versions but they were all ironed out by 2003, i think it was mainly injector problems.
If your looking at used one, ask for the computer print out. It will tell you how many hours at the different rpms it has run and if it has thrown any codes for problems.
There were issues with the earlier versions but they were all ironed out by 2003, i think it was mainly injector problems.
nedarb2
Active Member
ive also heard of quite a few compressor failures in recent model opti's.
All bias aside, etec's and suzukis are the 2 engines you hear the least amount of problems from.. maybe because theres less around, but i also visit a HUGE east coast boating forum and its the same story there.
Bias talking: both motors obviously work and are liked or they wouldnt still be around. but the etec design is much simpler for less to go wrong with more advanced technology put into it
All bias aside, etec's and suzukis are the 2 engines you hear the least amount of problems from.. maybe because theres less around, but i also visit a HUGE east coast boating forum and its the same story there.
Bias talking: both motors obviously work and are liked or they wouldnt still be around. but the etec design is much simpler for less to go wrong with more advanced technology put into it
Battle Bay
Member
One little tid bit of info on the white engines is they have had people sighn a letter of silence, if they wanted ther engines fixed. That the customer could not talk about or say anything about what happened to there engine. For the time i have been working in the marine feild on the west coast never had to get one of my customers to sighn anything like that from the other engine makers.
Aces
Well-Known Member
Both of our charterboats run either twin Opti 135's or 150's. They had some problems early in production but i am extremely happy with them now. I use less fuel than smaller boats with a large 4 stroke and a 4 stroke kicker on a comparable trip. That's a fact, same as we are getting 5 or 6 seasons out of them being used everyday. I too have heard about the Etec backroom dealings from someone that owns them. I'm not sure if it's because they are not a sound design or they just don't want any negative feedback getting out.
Rob H
Active Member
I have a 2003 Optimax 200 hp on the boat I bought a year and a half ago (21.5 ft. Campion). This motor starts great and the fuel economy is excellent on my boat (7.0 to 8.0 US gal per hour at 3400 rpm which does 28 mph). I work with the previous owner and between us there have been no repairs required, only standard maintenance. The motor has about 500 hours now.
A friend has a newer 225 Optimax which had the compressor fail two years ago. It was an expensive part and fix.
...Rob
A friend has a newer 225 Optimax which had the compressor fail two years ago. It was an expensive part and fix.
...Rob
Rob, you have the same motor / year / hp as mine and i also have a 21.5 campion. Im getting the same numbers in fuel, about 30 liters / hour at cruize, when i giver full throttle occasionally i can double the fuel consumption to 70 liters / hour. Im curious, what prop and pitch are you running and what WOT RPM are you getting?
Copper Moon
Well-Known Member
I have a 99 150 that is 3rd hand to me. Just after I bought the boat my compressor went. It is a very expensive repair. Since the repair I have had no problems at all. No smoke ever, runs very well and seems good on gas (at least a lot better than the twin 350's on my old cruising boat). In this cold weather that motor just starts right up without any problem at all.
Fish Assassin
Crew Member
I like to refer to these motors as POPtimax motors. I will never buy a merc.
Fish Assassin
Crew Member
I have a 2001 225 Opti that I used last year without any problems at all. It is the same motor Wolf is referring to. Great motor with tons of torque and the Salt water version does not seem to have the corrosion problems of some other makes (burned out exhaust etc). The gas mileage is amazing with the direct fuel injection and no smoke. I have a friend with a 17 footer and an old 100 horse Merc two stroke and a fifteen horse Merc two stroke kicker. It surprised us both that for the same amount of fishing my large heavy boat with the 225 Opti and 9.9 4 stroke Yam high thrust kicker and his boat burned about the same amount of gas. His old 100 two stroke and his 15 horse kicker are real gas hogs. Keep in mind that if you are going to use the recommended special Opti 2 stroke oil, that it is pricy and the last I heard it is about $50.00 for a 4 liter container. However, if you had a 4 stroke you would still being paying for good Engine oil which you have to change frequently and when they start burning oil its big bucks.
I understand the newer Opti’s are bullet proof.
It is true that the early large Opti motors including my 2001, 225 had some problems and that’s why they had an initial bad rep, but it has been overblown. AS I understand it, when they first came out guys in professional Bass Tournaments were starting them cold and immediately booting them to full throttle to race back to the dock and some motors were blowing up (usually piston # 6). I understand Merc actually took them out of production for a short time while they worked the problem. The solution was expensive but resulted in a free repair/upgrade via a recall. I don’t remember everything they did but some things were new fuel rails, flashed the computer, new sensors, iridium spark plugs and some other things. Since that free upgrade there have not been problems, certainly not with mine.
Over all they are strong motors and have been used commercially a lot including whale watching and military boats etc. I have heard some are still on whale boats with many thousands of hours on them.
I have been told that mine will eventually need new O rings (they use them instead of head gaskets) but because it is a two stroke the cost will be reasonable , no valves, cams etc in the heads.
If you are going to buy one of the earlier large Opti motors in addition to having a transcript of the motor usage pulled off the motor’s computer by a dealer, you can also have the dealer run the motor numbers through the Merc dealer computer system. They were able to tell me who was the original purchaser (some guy in Sidney) and that it had the recall work done. I don’t know if they still honor the recall so that would be useful to know if you are thinking of buying a large older used Opti. One last thing, the big Opti’s require a lot of power to start them and you will want to have good condition batteries with a least 1000 CCA’s.
I understand the newer Opti’s are bullet proof.
It is true that the early large Opti motors including my 2001, 225 had some problems and that’s why they had an initial bad rep, but it has been overblown. AS I understand it, when they first came out guys in professional Bass Tournaments were starting them cold and immediately booting them to full throttle to race back to the dock and some motors were blowing up (usually piston # 6). I understand Merc actually took them out of production for a short time while they worked the problem. The solution was expensive but resulted in a free repair/upgrade via a recall. I don’t remember everything they did but some things were new fuel rails, flashed the computer, new sensors, iridium spark plugs and some other things. Since that free upgrade there have not been problems, certainly not with mine.
Over all they are strong motors and have been used commercially a lot including whale watching and military boats etc. I have heard some are still on whale boats with many thousands of hours on them.
I have been told that mine will eventually need new O rings (they use them instead of head gaskets) but because it is a two stroke the cost will be reasonable , no valves, cams etc in the heads.
If you are going to buy one of the earlier large Opti motors in addition to having a transcript of the motor usage pulled off the motor’s computer by a dealer, you can also have the dealer run the motor numbers through the Merc dealer computer system. They were able to tell me who was the original purchaser (some guy in Sidney) and that it had the recall work done. I don’t know if they still honor the recall so that would be useful to know if you are thinking of buying a large older used Opti. One last thing, the big Opti’s require a lot of power to start them and you will want to have good condition batteries with a least 1000 CCA’s.
Oil can be pricey for the Optimax. I was using my main motor for trolling until I purchased a kicker. I went through a lot of oil in the first year. Since I added the kicker it has reduced drastically. Was purchasing the oil at a Merc dealer for the first year at $6 a liter in bulk. The price has gone up to $9 a liter now. Locations like LA marine in Port Alberni and Parker Marine sell the semi synthetic oil for around $6-7 dollars per liter.
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