New outboard

[Polly]

We decided to get a new outboard, and after a fair bit of thought and research, ordered a Tohatsu 5 hp from Marine Tech at South Walsham. Never having seen the place other than from the broad, I was amazed at the size and scale of the operation going on behind the old boatshed.

We collected the Tohatsu on Monday and traded in our old outboards. The deal went through in friendly and professional style, we were happy with all aspects of it, and would definitely recommend Marine Tech.

The Tohatsu is quiet, a big point in my book and starts really easily. Another big plus point is that the gear change is on the front and much easier to access than previous outboards.

[Viking23]

We have found Marine Tech to be very helpful, we get all our Honda consumables from there, we have always visited them from the river, and they also supply Calor gas too.

I'm not always sure when they are open, as once we called on a Saturday, and they were locked up on the river side, and of course, no easy way to get to the road from the river, at that point, so might be worth a phone call first.

[JawsOrca]

(Tohatsu's are very good outboards. We've had a couple and they have been amazing..good choice!)  

[johnb]

We were directed to this company last year needing the valve inserts for our old rubber dinghy. They had what we needed and were very helpful.

[LondonRascal]

I was watching videos about outboards recently, and how you’ve got the ‘Honda fans’ who would see nothing else adorn their boat and put down anything else – then along comes someone with a Yamaha who tells it different and claims Honda are not as good bla bla.

 

Of course everyone has to begin somewhere and I have heard a lot of good things be said about Tohatsu.

 

However, if you have an outboard and hardly use it – example on the back of a tender/dinghy is it worth going ‘mainstream’ at all?

 

I have been looking at motors made in China such a Hyfong

 

 

You could get something like a 3.5hp ideal for a dinghy for about £300.00. Indeed someone in Australia posted a video of a brand new one off Ebay inc postage for the equivalent of £223.00 at today exchange rate.

 

Admittedly they are clones – but they would not be as attractive to steal not being a known brand and for this sort of money it is almost disposable if anything went wrong, the first 20hr service on a Tohatsu which if you want the warranty to be valid has to be done at one of their approved dealers and costs may cost upwards of £99.00 plus VAT.

 

You see how important brand perception is, but how slowly people are coming to terms with the fact that Lidl’s butter might not be quite so creamy as Tesco’s but it is close enough to make the swap and money saved worthwhile – if the Chinese make engines that don’t go pop very quickly but charge peanuts I’d certainly question loyalty to a known brand.

[ExUserGone]

I have a 4hp tohatsu and it is pretty much a re-badged mariner, and just to mix it up some more a lot of mariners were made by yamaha, it certainly seems to share a lot of characteristics with my old yamaha motor.

Honda do make superb stuff nowadays but way overpriced, back in the 70's/80's it stood for Had One Never Doit Again, with camshafts made from chocolate and camchain tensioners made from butter......

[Liberty]

Hmm interesting.  

 

I bought a new 8hp Mariner and it was superb.  It was sunk at one stage for a week and after a few oil changes and a bit of WD40 it ran perfectly.

 

Then I bought a rib which had a 15hp Hidea on the back, approx 6 months old.  It was a bag of bones.  The recoil kept breaking, it shook so badly I ended up with a 'dead' hand after ten minutes of holding it, the choke lever detached itself regularly.  Norfolk Marine repaired it under warrantee and then it broke again.  I sold it in the end and warned the new owners of it's reliability issues but they were happy enough.  I was told it was a Chinese brand, which used old Yamaha tooling.  It seemed to use plastic instead of metal and was just not up to the job.

 

I replaced it with an 18-month old 15hp Mariner which starts first pull every time, even after winter.  Quiet, smooth, powerful, happy at low revs.  Perfect.

[JawsOrca]

I remember when we brought our tohatsu (it was a 3.5hp) it was widely known that engines I think up to 4hp were all tohatsu based but rebranded as the other brands etc (you could tell though as the engines where identical) ..

 

Googling hints that it's swapped around a bit now and Honda are now making the larger tohatsu (http://www.boatingmag.com/boats/honda-to-private-label-large-outboards-tohatsu).. so tohatsu certainly are the brand to go for..

 

Although I agree with Robin, if you hardly use it a chinese brand probably are ones to consider.. But personally I won't go for anything other than tohatsu (We did get a second new 18hp 4 stroke and that was very very good).

 

Sorry I know we've drifted away from the original post which I believe was a very positive review for Marine Tech at South Walsham.. my folks have used them to and I believe they were very good with them.

[Polly]

We wanted reliability, no.1 priority, so the Chinese option would not have been a starter. When we owned the Swift 18, lots of owners were changing over to Tohatsu and liking what they got, so although not too widely known, perhaps, I had been hearing good things for the last 5 or 6 years. Recent recommendations backed up the impression.

[Oddfellow]

A lot of these cheap Chinese outboards are using older Yamaha engines. At least this is what you will hear. 

 

In reality, what's most likely going on is that they are using old Yamaha moulds and tooling, creating engines that look like a Yamaha and may take Yamaha parts. But they are not Yamaha. The materials are likely to be inferior. Mark at MBA tells me a story of a young engine from these parts that was a nightmare to take apart for servicing because of poor materials and/manufacture. 

 

You really do pay your money and make you choice. 

 

Mercury / Mariner used to use Yamaha engines for many outboards up to around 25hp and now they use Tohatsu. HOWEVER, the components may be from the same source, but they are assembled in different factories and so a Tohatsu 9.9 is not necessarily the same as a Merc/Mariner 9.9. (actually the tohatsu is a 9.8 with the merc/mariner being a 9.9)

[MBA Marine]

Yep in my experience by far the crappest (technical term there) excuse for aluminium I have had the misfortune to have come across. That was a Parsun, I shall not work on one for a customer again.

[LondonRascal]

You may well be right but look back in the 1960's regarding cheap Japanese motorcycles and that they would never replace the well engineered British Bikes. Then again in the 1980's regarding Japanese cars and in the 1990’s about Korean cars and that the British and  European cars would always be better.....Hmm.

 

Is it perhaps better backing prejudice every time.

 

Perhaps it is a brave man who buys something from China for his small Shetland for example, or is he shrewd man with a grin on his face, who knows that while it carries on working he continues his savings over the known brands.  After all, if it all if it all goes to pot after a year or two he can buy another new engine and still be quids in.

[MauriceMynah]

Whilst I can see where you are coming from Robin, the Jap motor bike argument is a very different one from the Chinese outboard situation.

 

The Jap bikes won primarily because they were trying to improve the machines and the equipment on them.

Back in the 60s the British bikes didn't have indicators, electric start nor were they as fast. The **** took the cream of the British motorbike technology added the cream of their own and blew us away.

 

The Chinese cheapo outboard is doing the opposite, they take an outboard (of any nationality) work out what they can do without, work out where else they can save money and come up with something that they hope will last longer than the guarantee, or make the after-sales service so awful  that nobody bothers with them.

 

Edited to add, The four stars autocensored the word J.a.p.s.

[JawsOrca]

Lol  japs fixed... (hopefully).. although I guess it could be offensive .. I think it's overkill.. 

[MauriceMynah]

Thanks for that. I don't think that "Japs" is any different to "Brits" as far as PC goes!

[Polly]

I doubt Robin has to buy a wedding dress but the same situation applies, Chinese made copies of couture dresses sell for a fraction of the price, but buyer beware, the sizing is bad and materials cheap, trims glued on rather than sewn.....

In time the market will go for quality as did Japan, right now it's about getting a foothold in markets.

[LondonRascal]

Let’s face it I am not working for a dealer of these things wanting to move them off the shelves, but I am simply giving my opinion.

 

Some of these engines are going to be terrible and go bang after the 2 year warranty is up and you be left without any support and third party engineering firms turning you away because of the hassle repairing such would be.

 

But some would go on lasting and being pretty much as good as a ‘big brand’ would be.

 

Now one of the largest savings these manufactures make is in labour costs – having seen photos and video from a Russian blog who went to one such factory (where they buy engines they sell to the Russian market) you could see it is dirty and dim with so much done by hand - no CNC machining, manual lathes are the order of the day part after part day after day hunched over the machine making a few pounds in wages.

 

The likes of Honda could never be seen to have conditions like this so it is not just about the design of the product; it is how those who make it are treated too.

 

I agree with things said already about the manufacture methods - if they can get away with using cheaper metals which are less pure they will, so what does that mean for someone here in the UK buying one?

 

If you buy on the basis that you come thinking you are going to have a trouble free running engine in five years the likely you’re going to be disappointed – but if you are working on the premise that after the warranty of two years is up you are on borrowed time and at year three the thing goes bang, not a problem – you just order another new engine, another two year warranty and still have paid well under what one Honda of same output would have cost. 

 

A 5hp Honda short shaft engine costs from £1,249.00  a 5hp China ‘copy’ £696.00 from a UK agent, buy from the factory in China and that would come down to about £390.00 or less depending on brand.

 

Sorry to say, but while I salute those who would pay more for peace of mind or know they were getting something made in a factory whose workers were paid more and work in a nicer environment, I would go for how much it dents my wallet personally at the time of purchase and knowing full well I might have to spend out again a couple of years down the line, but then would I even still be owning the rib/tender such would bolt on to by then anyway...

[watershed]

I work for a company that,as part of its business does final assembly/fault finding for another company. A major part of the product is shipped from China. Alas,job preservation prevents me giving details of the product involved, but its an expensive item. The Chinese component is rubbish. Badly made,poor materials.warranty claims are commonplace. Its not even at the budget end of the market so there is not that incentive to buy.quite the opposite in fact!

[watershed]

Its common knowledge that Chinese mm's are up to 25% bigger or smaller than European ones and that their tape measures are made of elastic!

[BroadScot]

Its common knowledge that Chinese mm's are up to 25% bigger or smaller than European ones and that their tape measures are made of elastic!

Confucius says, you cannot put a square peg in a round hole....when did the elastic join in?    Having condemned many Made in China electrical Items, nothing would surprise me what comes from there IMHO. Yes I know they show the safety signs, but I would never take the risk.

 

 

Iain

 

 

Iain.

[JawsOrca]

I'd say an engine is something that needs careful consideration (If used by a boat that's frequently used) as it's needed to get to a2b and even on the safe broads, it can be a right pain if it don't play ball (Certainly considering as we have no breakdown service down south ). An engine should also last a fair few years without problem.

 

From experience, I've brought cheap and it quickly becomes clear that it's a false economy, learning quickly that the money wasted would have been better spent on something proper and sadly you end up buying the branded one in the end anyway. As with everything you buy the most you can afford but somethings need money spent on them. There's obviously a risk with most brands but there is such thing as you get what you pay for not forgetting the extra peace of mind is worth it's weight in gold! 

 

When we got our tohatsu's they were the new(ish) boys on the block but it was evident they where built well (they even had better ideas than others, including things like enamel coated water channels. (Our 3.5hp tohatsu is 8 years old and still going strong!). 

 

Clearly there is a market for cheaper models although I would only ever use on a boat which is hardly used and isn't the main means of propulsion. 

[ExUserGone]

While looking up info about electrical interference I found a rake of stuff about chinese electronics with components that were in the test samples bridged with wire and chokes filled with nothing more than a loop of wire and a lump of concrete to make the weight up, all CE approved as the test samples were done right, also when looking at a clutch problem on a chinese honda rip-off bike spotted that where the japs use a proper kickstart stop mechanism the chinese version had two gear teeth welded together (by a passing pidgeon) instead.

Quite a few uk businesses have switched back to uk/eu suppliers after getting a lovely sample batch of components and ending up paying for half a million shoddy or scrap items when the main order is done.

They are currently just in it for the cash, they have no extra expertise to add to an existing good product, they just want to make something cheaper that looks like a good product, I would certainly avoid as false economy but thats my choice.

In time they may get better.

[Oddfellow]

If a £695 outboard that's a rip-off of a quality £1500 outboard lasts past it's 2 year warranty, you'll be quite pleased. But what if, at 30 months old you need to get it serviced and a few bolts snap because of the quality? Do you pay a few hundred quid to have the engine repaired or throw it away and buy another £695 knock-off and do the same in another 30 months? 

 

At 30 months old, a decent engine that's treated well will be ready for another 30 months, and another after that. In that time, you might have spent £2400 on cheap crap with a life expectancy of a mayfly. 

[watershed]

Personally speaking,I think I'd rather take the gamble of buying a used well maintained engine of superior build quality than gamble on one of the Chinese ones.if you're careful/fussy they are about.hell,a noisy smoky smelly seagull would probably last longer for even less outlay.(I quite like seagulls BTW)

[Wildfuzz]

Or like some less scrupulous persons you could just steal one, great choice, very cheap, poor security and the opportunity to change or upgrade at any time (of night).

 

cinical, me. Never.......