F150, F175, F200, or VF150 Yamaha for the MX 1825

Excited to get to lay my eyeballs on a Skeeter MX 1825 up close and personal @ the SBC open house next week.

I know this “which motor is the best fit for the MX 1825” has been discussed a lot, and up to this point strictly based on my personal cost/performance ratio and based on how I plan on using the boat as an old fart. I had been leaning towards the F150 for some time now to keep cost down.

Lately, I have been looking at 2 newer motors that fall between the F150 & F200, The New F175 & New IN-LINE FOUR (Four Stroke) V MAX SHO VF150X. One of these might be worth a little extra money for a small bump in performance VS the big jump from the F150 to the F200.

I also really like the looks of the paint job on the IN-LINE FOUR (Four Stroke) V MAX SHO VF150X over the grey of the others, not the best reason to select a motor thou. So I’d like to get some opinions on the motors with the main driver being cost/performance from you guys if you don’t mind beating this horse a few more times.

Questions I have:

1. Which is the higher performance motor between the F175 & IN-LINE FOUR (Four Stroke) V MAX SHO VF150X? They seem very close to me with the slight edge to the F175.

2. Is the IN-LINE FOUR (Four Stroke) V MAX SHO line better quality motors overall than the F series?

3. Does the IN-LINE FOUR (Four Stroke) V MAX SHO VF150X get enough better gas mileage to offset the price difference in octane on avg.?

4. Does anyone know the avg. price differences between these 4 motors?

Thanks Rob

For what it’s worth I had the F150. Awesome motor! Pushed my 17 foot Lund fisherman with speeds around 53mph. I now have a Yamaha 200 vmax on a 19 foot ranger and get about the same speed (glass boat, much heavier). Love the motor, but miss the four stroke. I’m not a fan of putting oil in the res every other time I gas up. Four strokes are just simple. Of course the vmax jumps out of the water, the throttle response is insane. My next rig will have a four stroke, just because they are so little maintenance.

Can’t help you with your motor questions as I have a puny 115 hp. Yamaha on my boat. The good news is you intend to go to the open house in a couple of weeks! There will be 100 Yamaha guys there and the answers to your questions just for asking.
Congrats on the new rig I’m sure you will pick the right motor combo for your fishing style.

Just got teh MX 1825 with the 150SHO this fall. Love it. Had a 115 and a 90 before. the boat runs 47-48 no problem jumps out of the hole well .I put the edge hydrofil on it. I love the boat and performance. Gas mileage is excellent. Had the 115 on my WX2000T and this as almost as good. WOT eats gas like any boat but durring breakin I used 3/4 of an tank in 10h hours. The boys at Skeeter Boat center know their stuff and wil tel you that the boat is not underpowered and it is tough to justify the extra cost of the 200 for 1-2 MPH. JMHO. Goo dluck.

For what it is worth, I have a MX 1825 with a 200 on it. I’ve seen 53 MPH but it was in rough water. Got 18 hour on it so far but have not had any smooth water to see what it tops out at. The place in Illinois I bought it at said they saw 55 on the Illinois river. I does not to use much gas. Wasn’t sure the gas gage on the digital gages was working. Finally determine it was but the motor didn’t use much gas. Super quiet even at speed. Have a 19 Reliance prop on it. Really impressed with the motor. Had an E-Tec before on the Lund I had.

From my experience and what I have read. An MX 1825 DC/WT with the F150 tops out at 47-49 mph. With the VF150 or F175 it tops at 48-50 mph. The F200 tops out at 52-54 mph. The gas millage will be so close that you would not notice any difference.
The single console model goes about 1.5 mph faster than the DC/WT.
If you really like speed i have read that the MX 1825 SC with the 2-stroke 200 HPDI goes 57 mph.

We each have to decide for ourselves if the extra speed is worth the cost.

For me, the performance differences are so small that the F150 is the clear choice due to cost savings that you can use to upgrade electronics, etc instead.

However, if you plan to resell the boat within 8 years or so, the VF150 is worth considering as the sex appeal of that motor will help it move faster out of your garage.

I’m leaning towards the VF150, guess it’s sex appeal is working on me and it out preforms the F175 based on the performance charts, Links below:

http://yamahaoutboards.com/sites/default/files/bulletins/SKT_MX1825_VF150XA_2014-10-01_WLY_0.pdf
http://yamahaoutboards.com/sites/default/files/bulletins/SKT_MX1825_F175XA_2014-07-24_WLY.pdf

The F150 is the gold standard in terms of performance and most importantly reliability. If I was purchasing again I’d look really hard at the SHO though.

I chose the F150 because I wanted piece of mind vs an extra mph or two, but I don’t think you can really go wrong with any decision here. I think the biggest decision factor is how important an extra 1-2 mph are to you vs using that motor upgrade $ towards electronics instead…

The price difference on the F150XB and VF150 SHO is about $1300 on the same packaged deal of a 2017 MX1825. VF150SHO in the 25″ shaft is more expensive.

The MX1825 with 150SHO will be available to be seen this weekend at our open house in Chippewa Falls, WI.

Just to piggy back on Cal’s post a bit.
We will have both packages available for the very reasons you bring up.
One thing I will ad is one thing to look at when considering which ever boat/motor combo you choose is you can very your performance quite a bit with propping on this one.
We have about 3 different prop options we go with on a regular basis depending on what your goals are.
I would be more than happy to get into that a little more in depth (no pun intended…… OK maybe a little) either at the open house or feel free to shoot me a msg here.