PLEASE!!!!! See Rich Stern's comments under the post: "1999 Evinrude 175hp ficht whats it worth ? by MARK G., 1/6/2003"
He said..... And I absolutely trust Rich.....
"Mark, if you buy that engine, it is a game of 'motor Russian roulette.'
"The Ficht motors have great operating characteristics. And it may very well run hundreds of hours for you without a lick of trouble. But (and it's huge), they are almost worthless once they blow. And they do blow with alarming frequency.
"The 1997/1998 150 and 175 Fichts were VERY problematic. The most common issue appears to have been blown cylinders due to lean running, detonation induced lubrication problems. The engines run very lean to achieve the low pollution/high MPG goals. The operating characteristics encountered in real world boating applications caused the software in the motors to come up short when the motors were run for long periods under load in different situations.
"OMC tried a number of software upgrades to correct the problems. In the end, many owners got fully dressed, new powerheads in addition to software upgrades after their motors blew. But, some folks continued to blow motors after one or more replacement blocks.
"There is mixed feedback on whether or not the upgrades before 2000 did any good. Conventional wisdom is that the 2000 upgrades made the motor more reliable, but there were still problems.
"When Bombardier bought OMC's engine business from the bankruptcy, they did not take on any warranty liability. They did voluntarily agree to honor warranties for 2000 and later model year motors. That should tell you something right there. Folks with 1999 moters under OMC warranty were told to go pound sand.
"If it blows, it's gonna be $3000 to fix, and nobody is gonna want to warranty their work for any period of time, and you are not going to have confidence that it won't blow again. A $7500 motor that might cost another $6000 to $9000 just to keep running over a few years, hence perceived as worthless once it blows the first time.
"When you find yourself thinking you want to buy it: Repeat this question: "Do I want to buy the motor that put OMC into bankruptcy?"
"My advice: Don't do it."
