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I just bought a 1999 Conquest 21. The previous owners took great care of the boat a maintained everything each year at a local marina. The hours on the 200HP Mercury Optimax are unknown but my surveyor gave an estimate of 600-800. The motor behaved as it should have during the sea trial and has run a couple times without any issues since the purchase last week... Any opinions on the life expectancy on this motor? I am hoping to get a few good years out of it with the proper maintenance of course before I re-power with either a 150HP or 175HP 4 stroke?

Thanks

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You should be able to get the ECU read at a dealer for actual hours since day 1. Typical life with proper TLC 3000 hours.

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The 1986 Revenge I sold last year had a 2002 Yamaha 225 on it. Took it to the local Yamaha dealer and they told me that some of the gauge packages did not keep a full record in the brain box if battery power was disconnected.
(Do not have first hand knowledge if this is true or not but the dealers empirical evidence as to determine longevity seems sound)

They stated that "the best way to determine the wear on a two stroke was via compression check, cylinders should be within 3-6 PSI of one another and no one weak cylinder nor below 85% of the original spec. It varies with year make and model of each motor as compared to original specification."
This was verified on my twin 115 Johnson's by the local Johnson Deal here.

Maybe have a compression check done if the dealer can't get the info from the brain box due to something like I ran into on my 2002 Yamaha? You may have many more years of boating pleasure before you have to re-power!

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There is a Ventura owner I know (BluewaterPirate) who ran his 2002 Optimax 225 for 5121 hours before he replaced it with.....another Opti in 2014.

Any outboard, well maintained, can run at least 1500k hours.