"Submariner" wrote in message
...

I've been told that the 40HP Merc. had been around for years, and is
pretty much bulletproof. Aside from it going under water, being run
out of oil, or water in the lower unit, I can't think of anything else
to be concerned with.


Having just had a bad experience with Mercury outboards I would say that
there is additional things to be worried about.

I just bought a boat with a pair of 50 Hp Mercury four strokes. The motors
were a 2000 model, paperwork shows it was first sold in 2002. The motors had
only 16 hours on them and were still under warrantee.

The motors wouldn't idle well and bogged down and died easily when trying to
accelerate. I figured that the carburetors were just a little dirty and
that should be easy to fix. I mean, the motor only have 16 hours on them
and anything major would covered by the warrantee, right? WRONG!

Each motor had four carburetors and eight carburetors were seriously
corroded inside from having gas sit in them for 2 years. I would have
figured that gas in a carburetor was something that the carburetors would
have been built to survive, but I was wrong again. Mercury would not honor
the warrantee because they claimed the damage was due to neglect.

So, I learned two things: Mercury doesn't build their motors to survive
sitting around unused for periods of time, and Mercury has terrible
warrantee coverage!

They also have a **** poor customer relations department and to top it off
they don't stock parts for their motors! It took me three months to get
replacement carburetors.

You say this motor has been "used very little", which sounds a lot like my
case. I would certainly recommend hooking the motor up to a hose and running
it. Make sure it starts, idles and can rev up without any hesitation.

Rod McInnis