What year were the Optimax no good??

[baja200merk]

my uncle was the Sgt. of the NYPD Scuba Team and they had a zodiac hurricane with a 225 opti on it. He was out on the boat and it had 98hrs on the motor, he told his partner we gotta go in this motors gonna grenade any minute. Next shift took the boat out and had to be towed in. The pilot of that shift called my uncle and asked him how was it running when he had it out, my uncle said fine. The piolet asked "Sarge what do you think the problem is?" my uncle says they all have the same problem, the large oily hole in the side of the block!". Not one of their optis made it more then 100hrs with out needing a powerhead, they have three boats with salt water series Yamahas on them SINCE 9/11/01 WITH NO ISSUES!!!

I put a bunch of hours on his 200ho etec with no issues. Well there was that one time the etec wouldnt start, but thats cause i left it in gear

Kevin

[ultrafast]

yeh my 250 ho goes out every weekend gets great mileage its quiet and oh my wife loves it

[davemvegas]

only bad years for the optimax was from 1999 to 2015.

[cali kid]

Come on guys. I've seen good and bad with all the DFI's The early Fichts were by far the worst. Drove a great company,OMC out of business. The manufacturers used the customers as the test dummies. They are all decent marvels of technology now. But thanks to Bombardier theres a decent line up of DFI 2 strokes on the market. Nobody mentioned Nissan and Tohatsu, they actually make good DFI motors based on the Optimax. What I am seeing in my shop now more than anything are failed Yamaha 200-225 4 strokes 02 to 06. Completely rotted out, heads, mid sections, blocks, you name it. Maybe the manufacturers should spend a little longer developing the new technology instead of using us as test dummies.

[cali kid]

Come on guys. I've seen good and bad with all the DFI's The early Fichts were by far the worst. Drove a great company,OMC out of business. The manufacturers used the customers as the test dummies. They are all decent marvels of technology now. But thanks to Bombardier theres a decent line up of DFI 2 strokes on the market. Nobody mentioned Nissan and Tohatsu, they actually make good DFI motors based on the Optimax. What I am seeing in my shop now more than anything are failed Yamaha 200-225 4 strokes 02 to 06. Completely rotted out, heads, mid sections, blocks, you name it. Maybe the manufacturers should spend a little longer developing the new technology instead of using us as test dummies.

Oh, most of these Yamaha four strokes fail at less than 1000 hours on the clock. How's that for your 20,00 investment.

[XstreamVking]

Post#31 I gotta call bs.....or at least, merc hater..... Opti's are just as good as any yammi or BRP......I have five now on diff boats and nothing but good things to say about them...

[2us70]

Have a ton of hours on a 2001 225. The only problem I had was an injection miss at high speed. I was able to correct this with injector cleaner and a switch to "Top Tier" fuel. Otherwise just standard maintenance issues.

[Ron V]

I helped buy several of them for our local police boat with my lake sticker fees. Granted they were run mostly by idiots, but after watching it from afar I would never buy one for myself.

[baja200merk]

Post#31 I gotta call bs.....or at least, merc hater..... Opti's are just as good as any yammi or BRP......I have five now on diff boats and nothing but good things to say about them...

Your experience with them doesn't make me a lier. It's a true story, like all the early Dfi engines (Ficht 3.3hpdi etc) that came out in that era they all had issues.

Hater? sure but I curently own 5 mercurys and atleast 20+ Mercs since that post was made almost 10 years ago in 2007! hell I put 50 hours on my newer 225 Opti I built last May. Must say motor runs great gets 2.4mpg at cruise sips oil pushing a 24.5 proline. I've never owned an opti that didn't need fuel pumps and or compressor, injectors, fuel rail diaphragms. Once it's all doing what it's supposed to they run good they have made a ton of changes since the 2000 I was referring to.

[XstreamVking]

The only hard to believe part of the story was about the trouble free yammis that replaced the optis. You know I'm not calling you a liar. Just gotta stick up for the mercs, even on an old thread....

[native2]

The good optis had the new style VST tank with the red filter. If it has the old metal filter with the water sensor in the bottom it is the old style opti. The new style opti came out in 2003. I had a set of both, old and new. The new style is way more reliable and burns less fuel. I have over 4000 hrs on optis. The new style are pretty good engines. I blew up 2 of the older styles and used to foul plugs after long idles all the time. I would not buy one older than 2003. JMO

[LOSTINJ]

With current day fuel prices I'm fine with a simple EFI 3.0 Litre .......... I heard from a merc dealer that 300xs sales are almost non existent in 2015

I BUY NON RUNNING RUNNING 2002+ 225-250 3.0 LITRE MERCS

[WILDMAN]

I bought 11 of them this year!!