hogie roll

Why do new boat builders continue to hang that junk off the back of their supposed "offshore" boats? I would think the cost of upgrading wouldn't be a huge expense relative to the price of a new boat.

Are new buyers that price sensitive?

Do boat builders care if it's potentially damaging to their brand to sell offshore boats that are only good for small lakes?

Why does merc continue hooking them to power they can't handle?

I can't understand why cig ever built a 42 with bravos. What does that boat cost new?

These are things I do not understand.

1MOSES1

good topic. here are my opinions:

1. New boat builders simply build what they are asked to build. It's customer driven. If a customer wants a unicorn painted on the side, that's what they get.

2. There is a huge price increase from the standard bravo to say more robust surface drives. Even if the new boat costs 500k, the upgrade to 6's is what 60-80k. Thats 20-30 percent more.

3. While bravos aren't as robust as they should be, some have had good luck with them. We have run out XR's for 300 hours with limited issues on an old heavy flat bottom top gun.

4. I can't speak for Mercury's business case but over designing parts way beyond the MTBF doesn't make sense financially. They are in the business of making money as are all companies, some more so than others.

hogie roll

4. I work for caterpillar and if we took that line of reasoning we'd be out of business. We design for 10-20k hours.

1MOSES1

Different business sectors use different approaches. I work in aerospace and we design for anywhere between 20k-60k hours. Mercury is nearly the only game in town and can dictate the market.

murfman

Apples to Oranges, That being said, I never understood the popularity of Mercruiser out drives. The Old Volvo SP drives were so much more robust than the early Merc drives, then Merc copied the cone clutch for the Bravo, but the Volvos were always the underdog.

murfman

Bottom line as to why Bravos instead of SSM drives is all $$$

brentadkins

I ran bravos for years on a 27 foot twin engine with 454's. BUT, when I had them on my Fountain 47 with triple 502's... THAT WAS AN ISSUE to say the least. Sure, they will work for a while... Just wouldn't plan on a full season out of them. Luckily I had 3 engines, so I could always finish the day of boating before having to shut it down for rebuild....JMHO

H20 Toie

Probably because they will last if you take care of them
My 40 formula with 525s and bravos lived in the ocean for 8 years 400 hours
We have rough water here so it was important to read the water and not just hit it and hold on
The boat had plenty of air time over the years but still under control ( thanks Tres)
We did have one run back from Catalina that was real rough and I just hammered it most of the way 90 miles
One drive failed soon after but on that same run a friend lost his transmission his 700 boat so I would say it had to do more with our driving
For the price I think they are good drives
On my last cig I took off the bravos and put on imcos scx
The bravos went on a fountain with 800s
And are still running without a failure

ICDEDPPL

When I was looking I skip over anything that has a Bravo hanging off the back. F that drive

mike tkach

i sold my cat because the xr,s were a full time job,had enough and bought a #6 drive boat.