suzuki engines

[Bamaman]

Boat manufacturers appear to get engine manufacturer kickbacks if they go ahead and mount the engines at the factory. Many boat builders often add the electrics and engine controls for a specific brand of engine--so a buyer cannot buy a bare hull. To buy a bare hull, it might cost you $1K more just because of the lack of dealer rebates from the engine maker.

It appears that the Mercury Verado engines are really expensive to mount. It appears the completely new Merc 150 (non-Verado) engine is not a complicated installation and using standard Mercury controls/cables--and it's getting rave reviews. We need more simplification in our lives.

[GregF]

There was a $1000 swing on a small motor like my F70, just between a high volume dealer and a low volume dealer ($6800 vs $7800 my price) and that low volume price was still $1200 less than MSRP. The volume dealer here pays around $6200 from what I hear.
The rumor is the manufacturers get a bigger break than that.
A $9000 F70 might go to Bennington for $5500. There is also a lot of money to be made on the rigging hardware. A 703 controller and cables were about $400, the best price I could find. I bet Bennington gets the whole setup for less than $200 but they buy a buttload of them.

[Bamby]

Inboards almost or are exclusively are shipped from the factory with "engine installed", but you're all wet about outboard powered pontoon boats. The power choice is made by the dealer themselves due to their franchised agreement with a given motor manufacture. Example:

About this 20' 2012 South Bay 520 CR Pontoon Boats

2012 South Bay 520 CR 2012 SOUTH BAY 520 CR, The new 2011 520 CR South Bay pontoon boat is powered by a 40hp 4st Mercury outboard engine but you can pick any size engine up to 115hp,
http://www.boattrader.com/listing/2012- ... -100734917

About this 22' 2012 South Bay 922 CR TT Pontoon Boats

2012 South Bay 922 CR TT 2012 SOUTH BAY 922 CR TT, NEW 2011 SOUTHBAY 922 CR TT TRIPLE TOON W/ YAMAHA A F150 4-STROKE EFI, SOUTH BAY 922 CR TT PERFORMANCE TRIPLE TOON LOADED
http://www.boattrader.com/listing/2012- ... -100735049

Same Boat manufacture but two different motor manufactures. But in this case both boats "same dealer" simply because the dealer holds franchise agreements with more than one manufacture. Also note photo of the back of the boat in second link "there is no motor" so I suppose they removed it upon delivery?? Yea Right...

[GregF]

Most of the small dealers I talked to here get their boats delivered with factory rigged motors on them because their volume will not allow them to buy a motor at a decent price so they can't compete on price with a big dealer. The volume dealer north of me is exclusively Yamaha. The other volume dealer the other way from me is all Mercury.
The way they work the volume deals, it pays to concentrate on one brand. I suppose if you are really huge you could get the volume discount on a few different brands but the manufacturers try to make that not be true from what I hear, keeping another carrot dangling out there for a little more volume.
Maybe if you are in a little less competitive market, you can operate differently but we had a couple dozen dealers in this county (maybe a few less now) and it is a cut throat business where people will shop everything down to the price of the life jackets.

[Bamby]

Greg I'll allow that most of them are rigged as far as controls as shipped from the factory. But I've seen a lot of trucks hauling new boats across I-70 and haven't observed motors on any of them. One of my boats as delivered new came rigged for a Honda motor as shipped, as it was a special order boat. The only thing the dealer had to do was hang the motor, plug in the existing harness as shipped, then add the motor oil and we slipped it into the lake and motored away. No real brains needed or necessary even a "Floridian" could have done it.

And this was also purchased at a pretty small dealer too.

You can have any boat you want
Powered by any motor you want
At somebody's restaurant...

[GregF]

I only know what I heard in several months of shopping. I really only found a couple dealers here who say they ever get a motor in a box.
I suppose it is possible the motors are "presold" and shipped directly to the dealer for installation to cut down on theft from boats in transit.

These small dealers were consistent in saying their wholesale prices were quite a bit higher than what they get when the motor was bundled with a boat. The Mercury guy I know fairly well actually showed me his price book. I could buy one from Big Ed in Richmond cheaper than he could get one from Mercury.

[Bamby]

Give Greg aren't you ready to Give In yet.....

I live up here in Iceland about five months out of the year and I'm finding it hard to believe as such that boat dealers up here do things differently than those down there who more or less have a year round market.

Maybe you need to get out of the swamps some.

Here's another example for you to contemplate....

We package price all of our boats with reliable Yamaha Outboard Engines. Our package price of $26,995 includes a 2011 Yamaha 9.9 h.p. 4-stroke High Thrust with power tilt. Please add the following price increments for the engine that best suits your needs:

2011 Yamaha 20 h.p. 4-stroke +$800
2011 Yamaha 40 h.p. 4-stroke +$2,600
2011 Yamaha 50 h.p. 4-stroke +$3,300
2011 Yamaha 60 h.p. 4-stroke +$3,800
2011 Yamaha 70 h.p. 4-stroke +$4,000
2011 Yamaha 90 h.p. 4-stroke: +$5,500
2011 Yamaha 115 h.p. 4-stroke: +$6,400

If you do not see the engine that interest you please contact us for pricing.

So I'm supposing in this case the "Boat Manufacture" is loading up eight potential power choices along in the boat before shipping it off to the dealer, Hardly I'd say...

Source: http://www.boats.com/listing/dealer_boa ... &subp=true

[GregF]

OK you are right

[GregF]

Posted without comment

A boat manufacturer can have an OEM agreement with one or more outboard brand.
In our case, Bluewater, we have an agreement with all four.
Each agreement is different, but in substance, pretty close one to the other.
All of the agreements do not allow an O/B to be sold in any other way than assigned to the transom of a boat, by serial number, the boat builders brand. Does' not have to be rigged, can be shipped seperatly, however the particular motor (S), assigned to a specific hull, by serial numbers.
A boat builder is in violation of the OEM agreement if an O/B is sold individually, box, so to speak.
Why any manufacturer would jeprodise the OEM agreement to sell a boxed motor, loose, would offer me some real question. We wouldn't.
The O/B manufacturers, and the boat builders take the matter very serious.
Now, what can, and does' happen, a boat bought from a manufacturer with the motors, or motor, shipped loose, then as does' happen, the boat sold with no power at all, or perhaps a change of power, leaving the one or two OEM O/B's unsold, and the dealer sells them individually.
Generally though, it's far more efficent and economical, for the dealer to purchase the boat and power rigged from the factory.

http://www.thehulltruth.com/boating-for ... alers.html

[Bamaman]

Some of the boat companies, aren't just affiliated with an engine company. They're owned by an engine company. For example, Cypress Cay (formerly Triton) pontoons are owned by Brunswick Fish Boat Company, LP. Mercury Outboards is 100% owned by Brunswick. Sea Ray is also owned by Brunswick.

The Triton fishing boat division was owned by Brunswick, but they were sold to a hedge fund last year who rehired the original owner, Earl Benz to run the company. Triton then was merged with Stratos and Ranger Boats--THE COMPETITION. Triton is headquartered in Murfreesboro, TN, but they're making the fiberglass bassboats in the old Flippen, AR Ranger factory--side by side Ranger hulls.

Reading between the lines: Brunswick was owed for motors, etc., and so many boat manufacturers sucking wind. Brunswick purchased some boat manufacturers to (a) get the money back on what they're owed for motors, (b) to do away with competitive brands by controlling what motors go on a major brand's hulls, (c) to keep boat manufacturers out of bankruptcy, (d) help turn the boat companies around and sell the companies at a profit, and (e) allow Mercury to sell more motors and equipment.

I was thinking OMC also owned some boat companies at one time, but they went broke--and assets were sold to Bombardier (Canada)--maker of SeaDoo's, and ATV/UTV's. Bombardier had to put a fortune into Evinrude/Johnson to re-engineer the company and bring them into the modern world of manufacturing. Now they appear to be just affiliated with some boat companies.

Yamaha appears to also be in more affiliations, and they just make their own boats powered by their watercraft powercrafts and jet drives.

Unfortunately, most outboard manufacturing appears to be going outside the U.S. They're doing what it takes to survive in a very competitive business in a difficult economic climate.

[GregF]

Yamaha has the lions share of the market here. Looking at 20 of my neighbor's boats, 80% have a Yamaha hanging on the back

[Bamaman]

I'm also a fan of Yamahas. But, I'm realistic in that you really cannot go wrong with any of the major brands--ETEC, Mercury, Suzuki. They're all very good motors. It's just like Ford/Chevy/Ram pickups--all good. But, I would be hesitant to buy a Nissan/Tohatsu, even though some of their products are sold under other brand names.

I was reading the history of Mercury Outboard on Wikipedia yesterday. It's a very interesting read. I had no idea that they had joint ventures with Yamaha until governmental regulations squashed the programs. Then, Yamaha came to the U.S., and pushed Mercury to get off their duffs and make some engineering changes. So many Merc stores took on Yamaha--and they ended up pushing Merc out the back door. There are still just so many Mercury dealerships around--which is an important reason to buy a motor.

But, so many motors are being built in Japan and China--and so few motors built in the U.S. Things are a-changing! The prices of modern outboard boats are incredibly high--$15K to $20K for a 500 pound motor is just too much for such a small thing.

[Bamby]

Posted without comment

Greg I'm a member there also, and have happened to have had some correspondence with Mike in the past. He's one hell of a knowledgeable guy and knows his boats, but he happens to have very little knowledge or use for Pontoon Boats. In a pontoon boat environment we're comparing an entirely different class of boating.

The case Mike represents in his comparison is actually pretty valid. Let's face it a lot boat salesman are only interested in the closure of sale, sometimes so much that they may severally under-power the boat to get the dotted line signed. Therefor in a since I could see a manufacture of performance planning boats somehow protecting their customers from a ruthless salesman's underhanded way of closing a sale.

Pontoon Boats by design are an entirely different breed of boat that in effect doesn't require a minimal power requirement to reach minimal performance standards (planing). As such we as pontoon boaters though we share a common platform our needs for standards of power and performance vary considerably from recognized planing platform boats. Sure a lot of pontoon boats are capable of reaching and achieving plan but they don't haft to be powered to that performance level to achieve desirable handling characteristics either. That's the reason it would actually be unilaterally foolish to ship pontoon boats from the factory powered with a specific HP motor.

It's really up to the buyer to determine what their needed level of performance needs to be. The same exact pontoon boat will perform and have safe handling characteristics whither I put a 9.9 on mine or you choose to put a 250 on yours. You'd just have the advantage of getting to the sandbar somewhat faster than me but overall in the big picture of pontooning the boat itself could give a damn less what's actually pushing it.

[GregF]

It still gets down to how you buy your boat. If you are at a big dealer you might be buying right off the floor or out of his lot but the smaller dealers around here order your boat, built to your specifications and at that point, there is no advantage to not getting it shipped, factory rigged. At least that seems to be how it works from what I see.
As you see form the "what kind of boat do you have" thread, I don't buy a lot of boats but I do have neighbors who do.
It brings a tear to my eye to watch them buy a brand new boat, seldom use it and it rots on the lift. A few years later they decide that one is shot and buy another new one, promising themselves they are going to use it more this time.

[Bamaman]

But Greg F, you really get your money's worth out of an engine. I cannot remember anyone that puts as many hours on a motor as you do.

My hat's off to you--to be so committed to such a good, clean hobby. And to think you don't have a new boat every 3 years.

Because the water's outside my front door, we scarcely put 25 hours per year on our motor. We often just start it up, run 1/2 mile to the middle of the lake, and float with the wind for an hour. Then, we'll start it up, move it a mile or two and float some more. We'll do that half the night--listening to the sound system. I do my sightseeing on a new Yamaha Waverunner VX 4 stroke PWC @ 10 mpg. A boater doesn't always have to burn a bunch of fuel to have fun.