Haven't done any homework yet... anyone have any thoughts or preference?

I have a mercury 60hp on my boat, it’s decent

20 years ago I would have said Mercury. Not up to date on outboards now. Have you considered Yamaha, which are excellent.

Not sure what HP your after, I have some experience with small outboards. The smaller Mercury's are made by Tohatsu and are ok. I do prefer Suzuki over them. IMO, the Suzuki's are better made and run like a top. A buddy bought a new Suzuki 9.9 a few years back and it's a great motor as well. Here's my little 2.5, best motor I've ever had.

what size HP and use

Most smaller outboards are made by the same manufacturer just rebadged to the orders they get to build them.

Tohatsu Builds a lot of engines kind of like MTD build lawn mowers.

I have run 4 cycle Hondas, Yamahas and Suzukis. All are decent...my next one will be another Yamaha though.

Had a friend that had a Suzuki on a big off shore boat, always made it home. Didn’t burn a lot of fuel, was a great motor. I have a 20 Suzuki on a Jon boat it runs great. I would have rather had a 25 on it but bought it used.

wws

GCPete... I have a 02' 60 Merc I bought new... been a great motor. I'm gonna need new controls and power trim soon. I can get a new 60HP Suzuki w/ controls, SS prop, tach, and cables all installed out-the-door for $7690.
I have it on a 19' Lowe Big Jon CC. Inshore fishing, crab trot lining and setting pots mainly.

I've had 60 HP Merc 4-strokes since 2001. I've put hundreds of hours on them and never had a single problem.

I know guys that ran big Suzuki on charter boats. They all had problems and finding good techs was difficult. They took them off and put Yamaha's on...a very costly endeavor.

The bigger Suzuki's got a bad reputation early on due to how sensitive they were to propellers and how few techs there were that knew them well. Now guys have had them long enough that they know how to set them up for the best performance. A lot more techs around for them now too.

I have owned them all, and if I had to buy an outboard of any brand tomorrow it would be a Suzuki closely followed by a Yamaha.

I wouldn't even mention Mercury in the conversation

What dealers do you have near you.... I run Hondas commercially, excellent motors but you pay a premium, Suzukis are good, but a pain to do routine maintenance on, at least the older ones, you needed to remove the bottom cowl to change the oil filter. Yamaha also has a good following. Don't discount Tohatsu if you have a dealer nearby, very good motors and much less expensive than the big three.....Mercury?, eh, not a fan, especially the big ones, the small ones are most likely rebadged Tohatsus....
This is for mid size motors, no experience with the little ones.

I have a 2023 Suzuki 25hp with power tilt/trim, electric start, etc. Runs great, maintenance is easy in mine, I did have to make a plastic funnel to drain the oil to keep it from running down the leg. Not a big deal. I would recommend.

Mercury outboards 30hp and below are made by Tohatsu in Japan and are very reliable.

I don't know what is better / best I like my 2 Yamahas but they are 2 stroke , Dad and brother both have Yamahas brother has a 2 stroke 150 and dad has a 4 stroke 225

I have a 15 Johnson 2 stroke

and all I really know is , my next motor is going to have power tilt I don't mind a tiller at all , but power tilt is getting to be something I really want.

the rpm up down fine adjust on the new Yamaha's is really nice , and would be perfect for finding that trolling speed

that came out just after Dad's Yamaha and moving the throttle to try and get 650-750 rpm is very hard and that is where it trolls about perfect.
not sure if everyone has that feature now but for trolling would be really nice.

My 60 Honda has that "fine tune " rpm thingee but I've never used it...It has a tiller and electric start of course and trim and tilt, which I highly recommend!
Cool thing about it is if you go overboard and can't get back into the boat, you can use the motor mounted tilt switch to power you up out of the water enough to get back in....Don't ask how I know this...lol

have had merc's for 60 years but the next one will be yamaha.

how is the 60 merc for power on the 19 foot when you have it loaded down?

is that a 2 stroke or 4 ?

just wondering because it is the minimum recommended motor for the 1860cc lowe now , they seemed to have dropped the 19' and the 20' they suggest a 90HP minimum

Suzuki

GCP... very seldom have it loaded, usually 3 max people and a couple of coolers, plus 1200' trotline gear. I've never felt under powered and seldom run over 3/4 throttle.
I got 2 quotes from fairly local dealers... one was $7690 and the other $10,345, $2655 difference for the exact same thing... both long time dealers. Shouldn't be that much difference IMO. Both quotes were for the Suzuki 60.
4 stroke

Still run an old tower of power on one skiff.
We used to say,,,,, if it ain’t black,,, you ain’t fishing..

I am using a couple Susie’s now ,,,, love one hate the other.
4 stroke outboard with a jet pump suck…

I would be curios which dealer sells mostly pleasure boats and both of their proximity to water.
or who has the big fancy show room to pay for.
just a curiosity as to why one would be 2655 different unless one has a new old stock 23 or 24 motor to sell you and the other is specking a 25.

Suzuki all day!

Don’t use shorts marine Coop.

why not ?

Same here plus very very good service guy close but now retired. He told me to buy yamaha.

I’d go with the Suzuki between the two. I like Hondas personally, they’ve been pretty trouble free for me

Service department is terrible. They don’t stand behind their work and even if it’s under warranty, they take forever to do it and don’t do it correctly. Or maybe it’s a one off that happened.

This is a 2011 Mercury 60/40 factory jet 4-stroke. That boat/motor has accounted for well over 10,000 fish between catfish/bass/suckers. I have done absolutely nothing to the motor other than routine maintenance.

I’m not sure if there is even a Suzuki mechanic at the Lake of the Ozarks that I could get one serviced or parts. Our local Mercury mechanic is very good.

Majority of the commercial crabbers/aquaculture clammers here ( myself included ) use Suzuki. They’ll beat the heck out of them, stack thousands of hours on them and when they blow, buy another. I’m on my second Suzuki , it’s a 60 with 1100 hours, runs great. Use it almost daily. I do the services that I can handle. Such as lower unit oil, water pump and impeller, motor oil , racor filter and zincs.

Had a clammer tell me everytime he took a motor for a service, it’ll cost about a grand. So he runs them hard with very little maintenance ( borderline neglect ) saves the service fees over the years, and just buys another when it quits. Figures the money he saved over the years would pay at least half the cost of a fresh motor. These aquaculture clammers on VA eastern shore go daily on the tide, and that’s what got my attention. Their whole fleet is Suzuki’s.

Yep… old man Dave Clark was the best…. Sons got it now a won’t even work on anything with a carb….

I don’t have too many years experience with motors, but I did some research and bought a 6hp Yamaha 4 stroke for my little boat. Been using it for 5 or 6 years now.

Been a very good motor and very happy with it. I’ll stick with Yamaha when I upgrade my boat.

I wouldnt be afraid of either of them, and a lot like chainsaws and tractors, it depends a lot upon the dealership support in the area. Personally, I wished Evinrude was still manufacturing outboards as their torque was unmatched by any of the 4-strokes. I currently run a Honda 30 on my fishing rig and have no complaints.

GCPete...Both small dealers w/ minimal "show boats" out front... both have small lots. Got a couple of reliable referrals from the $7690 guy, not so much from the other. He quoted me $8500 on a "used very little but like new" 2003 Mercury w/ an alum. prop... $200 more for SS... Already told the 1st dealer to put it on, gave him a deposit yesterday... he said 2 -3 weeks backlog... no problem, I'm still riding.
Rob... did you know Price Honda bought out Short's Marine???
(never used Short's for anything except a set of wheel bearings 15 yrs. ago)

I was told 3 days to get my 60 Suzuki and got it 2 months later.The fancy tiller was supposedly hard to get.

I have about all of the brands except Suzuki, in my opinion the problem with any of them comes from using gas with ethanol, I don't have problems with 2 strokes or 4 strokes, but if you run ethanol, it draws moisture and that is the root of all the troubles. It also does not mix well with oil in the 2 strokes. Mercury says not to use it in their engines.

Love my little 2hp Suzuki boat motor.Light and powerfull for the size.Can hold easily with one hand.

Yep OMC motors (Evinrude/Johnson) were darn near bullet proof. So many still running in boats all these years later.

I’ve always run Yamahas but would definitely run a Zuke over a Mercury.

I used to have a Merc on all my boats but when I spec'd out a new boat a few years ago the dealer friend of mine suggested the Suzuki. First for me is always reliability then would be price. Had nothing to go on for reliability except word of mouth but the price difference was almost $8k for the 200hp and the 9.9 kicker. Went with the Suzukis and am really glad I did. Warranty on the Suzuki is 6 years vs. I think 3 on the Mercury. Pushes my 20' Alumicraft Trophy 195 at 47mph. Never had an issue with either motor and I average about 40 hrs on the big motor and 120 hrs on the 9.9 annually and these motor are 8 yrs old. They are a little sensitive to spark plugs after 30-40 hrs on the big HP motors but I have just gotten into the habit of changing them annually.

Yamaha. Period!

Last summer I did long days in a fishing camp using new 15hp electric start 4 stroke Mercury motors on new Lund flat floor 16’ aluminum boats.
Just got back from 5 days running brand new Yamaha’s 15hp 4 strokes on aluminum boats. The Mercurys were quieter and more powerful far and away. Much more pleasurable to run.

Another guide I know runs Suzukis, his biggest is 30hp, nice motors but make sure there is a good repair shop nearby. Not that they break down more but there are very limited resources for that brand, he does all his own work on them due to that.

Fall before last I bought a brand new 60hp Mercury tiller 4 stroke for an 18’ boat I guide with in the states.. I couldn’t be more impressed with a motor. It’s a pleasure to use and purrs down to 1.8 mph trolling while running at mid 30’s with two adults aboard.
They all have come a long way, I’ve run a lot of Hondas as well. At this time I’m running Mercury. I’d add that of the tillers which I use mostly the Mercury has far and away less vibration than any other. That means a lot when you have your hand on it all day, and shows me the engineering is well focused. Less vibration in anything mechanical is a good thing.
All are good, I wish you the best in your personal choice.

Osky

Look at what most commercial guys use....Hondas, zukis, and some yamahas, (Here), There's a reason for that...

I used to run Tohatsus because I had a good local dealer, good motors and less money, we finally got a new Tohatsu dealer and if this Honda wears out before I do I'll probably switch.
I could have saved 2,000 dollars when I bought this last 60 Honda. But the dealer was local and these motors are bullet proof....and I need them to just work with simple maintenance