Hey all:
Thanks to the great advice on this board, I steered clear of a used F&S with an old Evinrude FICT motor. Given the expertise here, what are folks thoughts on a boat with a 2004 Johnson 150hp outboard (salt water edition - although never actually used in salt water)?
By way of additional background, I had a deal on the Nitro 188 in the works, but that fell through when the seller wouldn't go low enough because he was upside down in his loan (no need for me to pay for his mistakes!). After talking with the wife about what would make HER happy, we decided to abandon the F&S idea and make her happy first with a deck or pontoon boat. The trade-off is I get to keep the PT175 for now and upgrade to a bigger bass boat in a few years. With my PT175 running fine, I can wait if it means something nicer down the road (i.e., no compromises).
So for the wife's boat, we found a very nice used Lowe Deck boat complete with fishing chairs (for the occasional outing) and a layout the boss likes. From the looks of it, the boat hasn't been used a great deal as its in very good condition. They guy that owns in now is a mechanic and has done a compression test on the motor that shows all six cylinders within a few psi of each other. Lowe has a pretty good rep, so I'm not overly concerned about the boat. However, I am not familiar with the Johnson outboards from 2004 and wondered what folks experiences and thoughts are. I know that Johnson is no longer making them in the 150hp size and instead refer to their sister line of Evinrude E-Tec's.
As always, any help greatly appreciated!!
Thanks to the great advice on this board, I steered clear of a used F&S with an old Evinrude FICT motor. Given the expertise here, what are folks thoughts on a boat with a 2004 Johnson 150hp outboard (salt water edition - although never actually used in salt water)?
By way of additional background, I had a deal on the Nitro 188 in the works, but that fell through when the seller wouldn't go low enough because he was upside down in his loan (no need for me to pay for his mistakes!). After talking with the wife about what would make HER happy, we decided to abandon the F&S idea and make her happy first with a deck or pontoon boat. The trade-off is I get to keep the PT175 for now and upgrade to a bigger bass boat in a few years. With my PT175 running fine, I can wait if it means something nicer down the road (i.e., no compromises).
So for the wife's boat, we found a very nice used Lowe Deck boat complete with fishing chairs (for the occasional outing) and a layout the boss likes. From the looks of it, the boat hasn't been used a great deal as its in very good condition. They guy that owns in now is a mechanic and has done a compression test on the motor that shows all six cylinders within a few psi of each other. Lowe has a pretty good rep, so I'm not overly concerned about the boat. However, I am not familiar with the Johnson outboards from 2004 and wondered what folks experiences and thoughts are. I know that Johnson is no longer making them in the 150hp size and instead refer to their sister line of Evinrude E-Tec's.
As always, any help greatly appreciated!!
