I believe newer outboards can be plugged into a shop computer and will give a lot of critical service info including "running hours".

I have a 2005 Merc XR6 and although 20 yrs old I don't feel that it has a ton of operational hours on it and I'm just curious. Is there a way to determine "hours" on these "old tech" units?

I have owned this motor since new. Many of the lakes I fish are 200 acres to 400 acres. Many times, I launch get on the trolling motor and fish all day. At the end of the day, and just to give the big motor some exercise, I will take a couple laps around the lake at about 30/35 mph.

I read an article a while back that talked about folks that had a motor for a number of years and started thinking they would have to repower soon. The issue of actual "hours" came up and it was thought that, in many cases, the motor could actually be very young in terms of operational hours. How is this determined on older motors. I'd like to know how "young" my motor is.

I have a 2005 Yamaha HPDI and the hours on it can be read with Yamaha software.  As for average hours it really depends on how much you fish.  A good rule of thumb for the average weekend warrior is 100 hours a year I’ve read.  My motor has like 490 hours.  As for lifespan, 2 stroke outboards don’t like to sit so low hours doesn’t always mean more reliability.  

I don’t know of any way to get hours on an XR6 unless it has a built in hour meter on the motor.  Once Merc came out with the smart craft gauge it is automatically logged to it.

 

If you have concerns, find a Mercury factory trained technician and have him check it over.

The xr6 does not have an hour gauge on it from the factory.  You cannot pull hours on this engine, unless there was a gauge installed by the boat builder, which wasn't common as the xr6 was oftentimes marketed as a lower price point engine in the 150 class, whereas the efi and later optimax were a slight increase and cost and therefore options.

As long as the compression is good on all cylinders you should be fine.

I have 481 on my Yamaha 225 and I feel its got a lot left in it... Hopefully.