Mercury Verado

[rlfrazee]

Have any of you guys read or have any experience with the new Mercury Verado 4-stroke? Any experience with 4-strokes period? Im hearing this new motor from Mercury is quite the deal.....RL

[Wgoodrich]

My Skeeter bass boat is just over 10 years old. Still can't get over the $50 K price tags of the new bass boats. Need some time to adjust to that cost mentally before I buy another new one.

When my motor blew I got lucky and found a used Merc motor I bought from a guy who was buying one of those new four strokers. The used motor has worked fine for a number of years now but sure would have been glad to have taken his new four stroker instead and left him with the used merc and of course with him paying the bill for that new stroker too. That would have been a deal ! Just dreaming for now.

Seen them but have not seen one in the water yet.

Wg

[Trophy23]

Hi, I can say a small amount about one now as I just had one put on my 1989 Bayliner 2305 Trophy hardtop. Not sure what you'd like to know, but all I have experience on is a 45 minute river test. I can tell you with a Mirage plus 17 pitch prop, the 200 Verado out did the 220 Mariner I had before. It was quick out of the hole and on to plane and we stopped at 5500 rpm and 45mph. This was a river test and the first run with the motor, so didn't want to over do it. It was very quiet and smoke free ride, with a smooth and constant acceleration clear to the max speed. The steering is very nice with the hydraulics and using the Digital Throttle Shift seemed a lot easier than expected. Just had to learn not to go to fast as you can't hear the motor very much and it's easy to over do throttle. Will take a little getting used to and I think it will be great. I think some steering advantage comes from the way the motor kind of tilts as you turn it from center making the turn a little crisper and smoother. Kind of hard to describe, but it's like the difference of running a chevelle or a corvette into a turn at the same speed. Its a little smoother. Bout all I know to say for now. Will know more later this summer after I put some hours on it.

[Wgoodrich]

I am looking to buy a new boat. Got an 87 Skeeter fish and ski right now. Love to hear more as you experience the ride.

Good Luck

Wg

[Trophy23]

Hi, I now have run motor for break-in of 10 hours. First time out was a little dissapointing due to my fault. I only achieved rpm 5050 and 35 mph with the boat having 4 people and 50 gallons of gas. Found out on second trip I needed to watch my trim better as motor shape will fool you into thinking you are trimming too much bow up when in fact you don't have enough. After looking at my trim gage this time, I trimmed to a more bow up condition of about 2.4 (on Smartcraft gage) and boat scooted right up to 5000 rpm and continued to rise as I played with trim. Topped out at 5350 rpm and 42 mph. I'm sure I could have hit 45 and 5500 rpms. Not bad on a old 1988 Bayliner Trophy 2305. Motor does cause boat to set down a couple of inches more in rear and becomes noticible when having a higher fuel load - naturally. But I don't need as much fuel compared to the 2 stroke EFI I had before. I found even at upper end I was at around 11.8 gallons per hour. At 42 mph that seems to come out about 3.5 mpg. at lower rpms I know it was considerably better, but don't have figures as wasn't writing stuff down. Now that break-in is finished I will try to give more info out. However, I would like to say, if you are purchasing a Verado I strongly recommend getting the 250 or 275. Why??? Didn't dawn on me at first, but later I realized, more power to weight ratio would have been nice and probably better on motor as it wouldn't have to work as hard for putting boat on plane. Same weight, just more power.