Thread: Average cost to do a yearly service on a boat

Originally Posted by happycaster58

Most motors get service based on the run hours, not every year. I did my 30 hr. and getting ready to do my 100 hr. service. Youtube videos and online parts stores make it easy. I can get every possible replaceable part online for about $5-600 total with OEM Yamaha parts. ( 2021 SHO 115 hp) Service takes me about 2-3 hours.

Mercury are 100/300hr OR yearly/3year whichever comes first according to manual. When i took it in the third year with 79 hours on it, he said dont bother wasting your money on anything the 300hr maintenance says right now. I mentioned warranty and he said dont worry, we tell the warranty rep if a problem was caused by lack of maintenance- they dont care about yearly schedule or records. He said run it roughly 100 hours then do oil change, dont worry about timing belt or plugs or anything until the 300hr mark or it starts to run different. He said oil doesnt go bad by sitting a year, go by hours if you can. I dont have a way to see the hours, i dont have vessel view, so i just do it every 2-3 years or so depending on how i use it. Its not expensive overall to do an oil change myself, but still no need to do it if i just run it 10 hours that year.

I am religious on changing fuel filters since they cost 3 bucks and take 30 seconds to change. Plugs got changed once because it was dropping a cyl randomly. It fixed the issue. I have to idle a lot where i fish, motor probably has 10 times the idle hours vs WOT, so i do pull the plugs and clean them up every year. Again it takes 5 minutes maybe to pull them, hose them down, wipe with a rag, check gap, and reinstall. They just get carbon fouled, they dont burn up or get oil caked like 2 strokes used to.

The one part of yearly maintenance you MUST do, is lower unit oil. Do it in the fall in case you have water in it, so it doesnt freeze in the winter. Dont forget this, lower units are EXPENSIVE.

I'm not very mechanical by nature, but I do my own plugs, oil changes, lower unit change and even my impeller change. YouTube helped a lot with the impeller change and dropping the lower unit.
I'll do fuel filter, oil and filter and lower unit lube this year. And the water catching filter. Maybe $120?
I won't try many repairs, but maintenance I can do. And if you mess something up, then you go to the dealer.

Just had my Mercury 115 serviced. 300 hour service right before the 5 year warranty ran out. Everything changed. A little over $900.

I’ve done all my Suzuki service for [emoji[emoji6][emoji6]] years on [emoji6] engines. The impellers are now too challenging on [emoji6][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]] engines.

My recent Yamaha [emoji6][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]] purchase will warrant dealer service on anything besides fluid changes.


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For a 150 Yamaha, SIM Yamaha has a service kit that I buy every year that replaces filters, gaskets, oil, lower unit oil, etc. The cost is $158. I do it all myself and it does not take much mechanical knowledge to do a good job. I did change the impeller once for the water pump and I do not recall the price of the parts, but it was not much. It was also easy to do after a bit of YouTube education.

Originally Posted by BAMA S

Oil change , plugs,foot oil. Impeller. Basic stuff
what are y’all paying. I’m hearing 12-1500 hundred going rate.
is that correct??? I’m outa the game right now just curious.

Well I live in LA, that would be lower Alabama. They some expensive boat mechanics around here. Now I’m not saying they ain’t worth it. But as long as I’m healthy enough I will always do my own. Hate to say it this way, but that way I know it’s done right. Just a few years ago a friend had his taken to a very reputable boat mechanic shop down here. They called him just as he was launching the boat. Found a part they had left out on annual boat motor service.
With that said even those that aren’t very mechanical inclined these days can get it right if you’re willing to watch step by step normal maintenance service on your boat motor on YouTube.
Not much to it, even changing impeller out. But I’ve never struggled doing that type stuff. Now the computer systems on some of these that’s a different story. Good luck and you’re looking at $80 to $140 per hour just labor. Most are going to charge a three hour minimum plus parts.



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