I have always used nothing but Quick Silver oil for my 75 HP Merc.(and have had no motor problems at all) With the rising price of outboard oil I have been temped to try one of the more economical brands on the market. Right now I feel the extra $12.00 or so a gallon is insurance against causing a problem. Any expert opinions on this, am I right or am I throwing money down a hole?
IMHO you’ll never waste money on good oil, cheap insurance. Especially if you consider the cost of a new engine or rebuilind yours along with the down time…
Have to agree with Nick. The better oils will help your engine run cleaner and longer. When I look at how much 2 cycle oil I go through in a year it`s not that much more for the good stuff.
Stay with reputable brands you know and trust, and make sure they are rated TCW-III. Some of the big names also bottle the “lessor” named companies oil and it is the same. Buts a crap shoot to find out down the road.
In addition, tc3 rating alone doesn’t really mean a lot, it’s more of a minimum rating, it doesn’t really do anything to indicate it being better than the minimum requirements. I myself am making the switch to pennzoil, and doing some more reading I’m actually leaning towards the semisyntic, versus full sythetic, and the price one the semi is pretty nice at a round $15 a gallon.
Neither here or there I think you are better off with some namebrand oil, atleast of the semisynthetic flavor.
Not sure I’ve burned more than 15 gallons or so of oil a year (big motor) Even at that your talking $150-200 extra for buying preimum oil, average cost of a rebuild being I think somewhere in the 3K range starting, I know my motor is more like 6-8K, I just think it’s a bad corner to cut, and a small price to pay.
Long ago I decided fishing was my hobby, and not working on outboard motors, that since lead to my first boat and motor, and knock on wood haven’t broke since. (2000)
Nick, Penzoil is the brand that I looked at in Wally world and got me to thinking why so much difference in price. Did you Google Penzoil Marine oil? It kind of sounds like you did. It sounded to me like there was a partial synthetic marine penzoil and a just plain marine penzoil and the partial marine penzoil was the favored brand. It sounds like some of the folks conceder Penzoil one of the major brands and I agree that it is one of the major auto oil brands but for oil injected outboards I think of Quick Silver, Johnson, Yamaha and such. You said you were making the switch to Penzoil, I don’t think I’m brave enough to do that yet. Keep us posted on how it goes.
Will do, I have labored over the change, and I’m ready to give it a shot, and for what it’s worth, price was not a factor in my change, though it appears to be a bennefit.
Does anyone think the cheaper oil stinks more than the more expensive stuff? Seems to me it does.
Don’t we have an oil guy on IDO?
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