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Boating Magazine's February 2005
issue featured an article titled "Oil in the Gas"
by Charles Plueddeman. This article has the best attempt I've seen at an
apples-to-apples comparison of "New Age" 2-stroke and 4-stroke
motors, including operating costs. The hull - an Edgewater 205 CC. The motors:
Yamaha's 2-stroke Z150 HPDI, and Yamaha's 4-stroke F150. They did full
performance tests, and looked at operating costs over a 5 year
period (including buying/changing oil, recommended service, fuel
consumption).
The conclusion? No significant difference in operating costs between the two
motors, consumers should base their choice on their preferred
performance profile - better holeshot implies 2-stroke, lower noise implies
4-stroke.
The cynic in me says "Well of course it would turn out this way. No
competent Marketing Guy would ever let his company produce two competing
products, and have one of them clearly appear better than the other."
It is interesting to note that the E-TECs only require service every 300
hours of operation. In this article, they assumed the average
boater would run the motor around 50 hours/year, so the E-TEC would not need a
service during the comparison period. If you inject this parameter into the
comparison, even if the E-TECs consume the same amount of oil and gas as the
HPDI (and there is evidence that it has better fuel economy and uses less
oil than the HPDI), the E-TECs would / could come out about $1,600
cheaper to run over the 5 year period. Assuming better hole shot
and comparable noise levels to a 4-stroke, it would seem like the E-TEC is
clearly a better value. Of course, this all assumes that the E-TECs are a
reliable as the Yamahas, which only time will tell.
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