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Yamaha vs Mercury Outboard Motors

  • Captain Verde
  • Jun 5
  • 2 min read

Updated: Jul 7

Outboard Motors
Two great choices for powering your boat.

These represent the two heavy weights of the outboard motor market. Both of them are high quality motors, and both of them will serve you well.


Mercury was founded by an engineer, Carl Kiekhaefer, who bought out a failing Wisconsin outboard motor company in 1939. He and his team of engineers made improvements to the acquired motors and began selling them through the old mail-order company, Montgomery-Ward. Due to the high quality and reliability of the motors, the company saw wild success. It’s noteworthy that Kiekhaefer also went on to become a winning NASCAR team owner.


Yamaha started making outboard motors in 1958 after creating a new motor division within the Yamaha corporation. Yamaha took painstaking years to research and develop its first model, using some of the lessons from their motorcycle division. In 1970, Yamaha outboard motors were introduced to the US market.


Both motors are currently offered as low as 2.5 hp all the way up to 425hp and more. For the consumer market, these are very suitable horsepower ranges. There are boat manufacturers that could likely have partnership agreements with some of these outboard motor companies. So your boat of choice might already come with one of these included in the price. And pricing for each of these outboard motors are pretty similar. There is not going to be much of a difference between these two outboard motor titans. At the end of the day, you will be happy with either one. And you will find plenty of support and competent repair techs for either brand. Yes, that is a consideration. You want to be assured that there is plenty of support and that it will be easy to get service for your outboard motor.


Other players in the outboard motor market that we come across here in the southeast US are Honda, Suzuki, Nissan, and Tohatsu. If you are budget hyper-conscious, you may save some money with these brands and still get a good quality motor.


We ourselves run Yamaha motors only, but that is more of a standardization issue. We don’t want to have to keep a supply of parts and know-how for two different brands. It adds to the cost of operating our business. We do indeed highly recommend Yamaha, and we get more than 5,000 hours of life from them.

 

WHERE YOU GO FROM HERE:

Aluminum vs Stainless Steel Props - which one is right for your boat?


How Much Horsepower? - how much is enough?


Steering Systems - Which of the 3 types is right for you and your budget?

 

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