I am wanting to buy a boat from a guy and it has a 250 pro xs on it. with these being $$$$, how do protect yourself?

motor model is 2012 250 pro xs

What does a hour scan tell you?
How/ can you, tell if broken in properly?
Does Merc void warrantee for improper break in?
I have the Serial number, how do you tell how much warrantee remains?

thanks, I am nervous for the sole fact boats/motors are so expensive nowadays. The guy is a "state team" member so everything is probably fine, but ya know some people run their stuff hard (not saying he does) and want to "know before I buy" if possible.

thanks

That new, it still should have a lot of warrenty on it, make sure it's transferable.  Might also want to look at one of those extended warrenty plans you can buy.  From that point,  that's about all you can do to protect yourself.

 

Now, before buying, I strongly recommend having it checked out by a dealer and get them to pull the hours out of the ECM and pull up the service history on it.  Yes, this is going to cast a few bucks, but it could save you thousands if you find it's a lemon and has spent more time in the shop than on the water, or it has had the dog crap run out of it and already has hundreds of hours on it. 

 

Now having 300 - 500 hours on a year old motor is not a deal killer, as long as he drops the price enough to compensate for it, but it he's price a tourny boat like an individuals boat, then he's way over priceing it.  The average individual probably won't run on more than 50, to 100 hours per year, for what it cost today to run one, many won't even do that.  So, that's a large numbers of years wear already on that motor when you get it.

it has "about 100" on it.

 

my main concern is proper break-in, is there anyway to tell after the fact if it was done correctly?

I don't know about merc's but with Rude's, the ECM tracks the hours and at what rpm ranges they were run. The ECM also used to controll the break-in. I would take the SN: to a dealer and have him pull the maintenance records and see if all scheduled maintenance was performed and if it had any failures and what kind they were.

As for how he broke it in, if the Merc's ECM doesn't control it, they there is no way to know if it was done by the book. However, I think if you check, there's not a lot involved in breaking in a factory new motor.

I can really only comment on the warranty part of your question.

 

With my Yamaha, I brought the serial # to an authorized dealer and they could pull up warranty information and told me how much was left on mine.

 

When you get the warranty information pulled @ the dealer, ask them if there is a way to tell a/b "proper break-in." I know they run the diagnostic-type-program on it ----it tells amnt of time running various RPM's plus overall hours. Mine didn't have a "play by play" breakdown... like "minute one - 3k rpm, minute 2 - 4k rpm, etc etc..."

 

I'm curious to see what happens here...

When the dealer plugs into the computer, they can find out if it was broke in properly, error codes, and an rpm breakdown.

got the serial number ran down..... warrantee runs out 1/12/2015.

 

now to find out about the rest.

 

its a state team guys boat.......so opinions vary on that, and it really depends on the person on how it has been treated (just like anything else)

Like slonezp said the dealer can hook a laptop to it and give you a breakdown of hours in 500 rpm increments.  Why worry if it is a tournament boat?  How many pleasure fishermen buy boats with a 250 HP outboard?  I often hear stay away from tournament boats but why?   Outboards are designed to be run at WOT for extended periods of time, they will carbon up more at mid range RPM than higher RPM and carbon is an engine killer.