I am learning that alot of boat motors are now built by different companies.

I was looking at a four stroke mercury and considering it as a option for a HP upgrade.The lady told me the 2004 model she had new was built by mercury

in the fourstroke but the new models are actually tohatsu!I knew johnson four

strokes were built by suzuki and nissan and tohatsu were the same,now three

motors are the same,mercury,nissan,tohatsu.

I have found that the only engine built in smaller fourstrokes are yamaha

suzuki and honda.Don't mercury and johnson have the technology to build

there own fourstokes,or is it a money issue.

If I were going to take a wild stab at this and guess...more than likely it is a re-tooling issue. Changing an assembly plant both in tooling and in proceedure takes alot of time and money. Sometimes it is just easier to farm it out. Maybe they are working on retooling but wanted in the market right away...maybe they were not sure if the 4 strokes were going to be real successful so they wanted to test the market before committing...maybe it is just damned cheaper to have them built out of country. alot of possibilities.