If you review the section of the article on Service / Reliability, we did a cost analysis which says that if we follow the manufacturer's service schedule (dealer service every 300 hours or 3 years), we would save several thousand dollars over the costs of operating a 4-stroke motor over a 10 year period, even with the added cost of burning 2-stroke oil.

Note that Evinrude does not say "no maintenance for 300 hours". The owner is still expected to do things like grease fittings, and check for fishing line on the prop shaft. However, the normal dealer service items - spark plugs, fuel filter, gearcase lube change and water pump impeller replacement - theoretically do not have to be done except at 300 hour intervals.

Skeptics say that it will be impossible to operate a 2-stroke outboard for 300 hours without those dealer service items, therefore, E-TECs are more expensive to operate than the equivalent 4-stroke.

In this column, we will be logging all service and repair that we do to our E-TEC 90 HP Saltwater Edition, and recording the costs. We will also keep a theoretical log of the routine service and other things we would have to do if we had purchased a Yamaha F90 4-stroke (based on the recommended service schedule in the owner's manual).

For the Yamaha, we will include two tables - one showing the costs if the dealer performs all service, one showing the costs if the owner does all service except the major ones at 500 and 1000 hours (we think these scenarios are the most likely to occur, as opposed to having the owner perform all service). At any point in time, you should be able to see a reasonable comparison of costs.