HONDAGRIEF.COM

Documents:
My Letter to Honda
Honda's Letter of Response
Thermostat Recall
2002 Honda Bill of Sale
2007 Honda Bill of Sale
May 11, 2007 Repair Bill
Honda Customer Relations Survey
Documents Sent to Honda

Welcome to Honda Grief. My name is Mark P Miller. I was born on March 3, 1960. As of this writing I am 48 years old and have actively been fishing and diving most of my life. I obtained my captains license in 1991 and have kept it active since. I run fishing, diving, and Island Charters part time. I am also an Electrical Engineer from Mississippi State University specializing in Power Systems and Digital Computing and I work on computers and networks full time. Anyway, that was just to give you some background on who I am.

I posted this page to make my complaints with Honda known to others (since they obviously don't care) and hopefully help others make better choices when picking their Outboard Engine. These big outboards these days cost tremendous amounts of money and once you make a choice, you are often stuck with it.

Let it be known that this is merely my own experience with Outboards and in no way should be considered a consensus. I am just one person expressing his opinion and experiences. Others may have had different experiences and I welcome them to send those to me so that I can post them as well.

I would like to start by stating my biggest compliant with Honda. That is their lack of direct communication with their end users. Honda relies on their Dealers to work with their customers and will only talk to end users if they are not satisfied with the Dealer's actions. Even then, they will not follow up and see if the problems were resolved. Oh, they may send you a nice questionnaire about it, but you will never hear back after sending it in. You will notice in my documents that all their correspondence does not give you a person to contact. Even their Official Response to my Certified Mail had no last name. It was signed by Russell D. and if you call his number, you simply get lost in their automated phone system. You can leave a message, but nobody will call you back. The best way I found to get Honda to talk to you was to tell the Dealer you insist that they have someone from Honda call you.

I guess I should start by giving some background and talk about all the engines I have been thru with my 1996 Proline 240 Sportsman. I may get a little side tracked on this article, but I am going to just treat this like a personal journal. I purchased this boat new back in July of 1996 from Mcleod Marine in Pascagoula, MS. This was my first new boat purchased. Previously I owned a used 24' Aquasport with a 235HP Evinrude and before that a 15' Mitchell with a 70HP Johnson.

I am going to sidetrack a moment here to tell you about my initial problems with this boat. When I had a good load in the boat, it would not plane off. I could push the throttle full and I would get about 3700 RPM and that was it. The dealer kept saying they could not duplicate the issue. I asked them to call me from the ramp and I would meet them, but they kept water testing after my complaints and never would call me. After about 4 times, they finally called me from the ramp and said they could not duplicate the problem. I went down there, put water in the live well to add some weight and low and behold they experienced the problem. Their approach was to change gas lines and such, none of which helped. I then called Proline about the problem and they asked what kind of prop I was running. I told them and they said that prop was not even on their table. I asked them to send the correct prop to the Dealer and that fixed my problem. Anyway, maybe this information can help someone else having this problem.

This Proline came with a Mercury 225 EFI. That engine did well for about 3 years (1999). I started having some issues with it running rough and eating lots of gas. One time my 144 gallon tank ran out of fuel after a 165 mile trip. A situation came up where a dealer (Ocean Marine Group) had a new 225 Mercury Optimax on sale for $8500. The story was that it was sold to an SKA Tournament participant who blew the power head after the initial trip. They needed to get it back quick for the tournament, so Mercury gave him a new engine and authorized the dealer to sell this one for $8500 after it was repaired. The dealer also had someone interested in my EFI for $4000 so I was looking at $4500 for a new engine that was suppose to be much better on fuel. Sounded like a good move so I did it. I had them install a flow scan at the same time and I will say that I probably will never have a boat without one of these marvelous devices. They are quite accurate and let you know exactly your fuel consumption rate and has a totalizer so you know exactly how much is left in the tank. I even use it now to record and bill fuel as an adder on My Fishing Trips. You will notice the consumption will vary significantly on sea conditions with the newer 2007 Honda Engine, whereas it was not as big a factor with the 2002 Honda Engine. Anyway, this seemed to be a good move as I was now getting anywhere from 1.8 to 2.7 miles per gallon. Load had a big influence on what I was getting, but mostly it hung around 2.1-2.3 mpg. This engine seemed to do fine for about 3 more years (2002) except that I would always get these alarms for no reason. The were always transient and went away. Ocean Marine Group said it was a common issue and eventually advised me to just ignore them. After a camping trip to Horn Island in May of 2002, we started out the next morning and idled out to deeper water. As we started to plane off, the engine just slowed down on it's own and froze up. No alarms or any warning. Anyway, it turned out the Power Head went out. It was just outside of warranty, but Mercury was very cooperative and agreed to repair the engine at their expense. The bad news was that I would be down perhaps a month during prime season. An alternative was to purchase one of the new Honda 225 BFI 4-Stroke engines for about $20,000 and be running in a couple days. Boasting good fuel economy and no 2-Cycle Oil to deal with, I decided that would be a good choice to make. I put the Optimax up for sale which proved difficult to sell. Eventually I let it go for $5,000.

This started my Honda Experience. Initially it appeared to be a very good choice. This engine was getting about 2.1 mpg and it was not as dependent on load conditions. Also, I did not have to deal with 2 Cycle Oil whose typical consumption was around 2.5 gallons per trip at $14 per gallon. The engine has a feature called V-Tech that changes the engine timing at higher RPM to give more power when needed at the expense of fuel. On this initial engine, it would kick in at about 4700 RPM. I could run the engine just under this point and get good fuel economy. The problem with my current Honda is that this point is closer to 4000 RPM and it is just not enough to maintain a plane under loaded conditions, but I'll talk more about this later.

I'll sidetrack once again to talk about an early problem I had with this first engine. I would get an alarm on the engine at times like I used to get with the Optimax. Ocean Marine Group (the Dealer) said the technology was so new that they did not have a computer to hookup to it and find out the problem. I called Grady Marine in Mobile (next closest dealer) and asked if they had a computer to diagnose it, which they did not. I then decided to purchase a Service Manual on this engine and reading it revealed that the alarm code could be determined by purchasing a shorting clip that when connected to the engine would cause the alarm light to blink a pattern that could be looked up and reveal the problem. I had Ocean Marine Group order me one (they did not even have one in their shop) at my expense and a week later I determined the alarm was indicating either a Spark Plug problem or a bad Oxygen Sensor. Since I had 400 hours on the engine, I changed the plugs and it had no effect on the Alarm. So I asked the Dealer for an Oxygen Sensor which they wanted around $250 for. I explained the warranty issue and they said to bring the old one and they would exchange it. That cured the problem. It's a shame that the authorized Honda Dealer could not perform these steps.

The engine did well until around April 2007. One day the Engine would not crank, so I took it in. I advised Ocean Marine that there appeared to be too much corrosion on the engine and I could not figure out why. They said there was a thermostat gasket recall on the engine in September 2005 that was causing saltwater to leak into the engine compartment. Hurricane Katrina struck us on August 29, 2005 and we did not have postal mail for about 3 months so I never received the recall notice. Anyway, I advised that I needed dependability and to please change any parts they deemed necessary to get the engine in good shape. They changed several parts including a $450 alternator which was not giving me any problems. After a $1200 repair bill I took my boat home, launched it, and guess what? It would not crank. That should have been my sign. I called Ocean Marine and talked to the owner who said he happened to be on the water test and it was working then. I kept trying and all of a sudden, it just started working again. Once it cranked it worked as it should, but if I let it cool off, it would take a while to crank. After making a couple close in trips to test it, everything seemed to work until one trip when it failed and would not crank. I discovered a blown fuse, found some wire to jumper it and got home. I replaced the fuse and kept some spares onboard. My Service Manual showed this fuse to feed the fuel pump. Also the problem of having to crank for 30 seconds when it was cold appeared to be cured. I made 3 more trips and the fuse blew on the second trip. Otherwise it was working. Then on a June 10 Charter it broke down. Initially the fuse went out again, so I changed it. We got less than a mile and it went again. This time, as we started to plane off, the engine made some bad noises like something came loose and we were dead in the water. It would turn over, but did not sound right and would not crank. After being towed in and getting her to Ocean Marine, they advised that a timing belt bearing had gone out, bearings shot up into the air breather and down into the cylinders. Of course, I complained that I just had it in their shop for corrosion problems and that they should have changed them at that time. They advised that Honda would buy the $791 of parts needed and I would have to pay the labor that was estimated at $4,000, but could be much higher. My other option was to buy a new Honda for $14,348 and I would get a 5 year warranty and be running in a couple days. I asked about switching to the Mercury Verado, but they wanted an additional $4500 and 3 weeks to change the controls. So reluctantly, I felt cornered and decided to get the new Honda. They assured me all the kinks have been worked out and this engine would do me a good job.

At this point I was not a happy customer. I had an engine that had a factory recall that I was not notified of. I advised Honda to repair the damages due to the defect at my expense. I received the boat back, paid them over $1200, and less than a month later had some serious damage due to their negligence of not replacing the Timing Belt Bearings. Their own documentation advises to change the Timing Belt after 1,000 hours. This engine had 1100 hours on it plus had the corrosion problems. I wrote Honda a certified letter to get Honda's Official Response on this matter. It basically said that I was out of warranty and tough luck. It did not help that I paid an extra $1650 for the extended warranty and never used it. I did not have the extended warranty on the Optimax and Mercury fixed it even though it was technically out of warranty.

Now starts my issues with this "NEW" Honda. Apparently there were some design changes made. This new engine does not work like the old one in regard to the V-Tech. This new engine's V-Tech comes on earlier and is not suited for larger single engine boats like mine. Instead of the 4700 RPM cut-in I was used to, this engine cuts in closer to 4100 RPM in the Summer. I noticed in the Winter, it was closer to 4500 RPM. If you can run the engine below the V-Tech cut-in, the fuel economy is actually about 2 gallons per hour better than the older design. The problem is that I cannot run that slow when loaded with people and gear and running offshore. Bottom line - it was costing me about 4 gallons an hour in fuel. If I run it right at the cut-in point, the Engine will accelerate 200 RPMs for a few seconds, then slow back down for a few, then back up and so on Video. All this without touching the throttle. It's kind of annoying. Of course I complained, brought it back to them, and their tests said it was doing like it was suppose to and there was no way to adjust this cut-in point. I complained to Honda and they sent a rep who changed the computer out saying he did not know if it would help but the number was A02 instead of A01 so there must be some changes. It did not help at all. Also, to this day, I never heard from the Dealer or Honda to see if it helped or if I was happy now.

Now I wanted to trade the Honda in for a Verado, but of course they would not take it back. So rather than forking out a bunch more money and being stuck trying to sell the Honda, I have been working with it best I can.

I will also mention some other differences I noticed between the Engines. The 2002 Honda always gave me alot of black soot on the back of the Cowling. Neither the Dealer nor Honda could explain it. Also, the Cowling would warp like there was an exhaust leak or something forcing it out. They changed this Cowling once, but after 2 trips it was just as before. The Dealer Mechanic said he saw this on a small percentage of engines and did not know why. The 2007 Honda does not have this problem. Also, I noticed the Oil stays clean much longer. The 2002 Honda's oil would turn pitch black after just one or two trips. Plus I would have to add oil to the 2002 Honda after several trips and not so with the 2007 Honda. In hind sight, I believe there was a ring seating problem with the 2002 Engine that Honda would not acknowledge. They would just try to appease me to keep from doing a major repair. My belief is that they knew they could blow it off until the warranty was out and it would save them a bundle of money.

Some other issues I have had with the new engine that I never saw with the 2002 model. Sometimes, usually when coming out of the hole, the alarm will sound and the engine RPMs would drop drastically. The RPMs would come right back, but the alarm sounds until you turn the engine off and restart it. First time I thought I must have hit something, but it has done this at least a dozen more times. It has also happened three times when traversing rough seas and hoping over a wave. One other problem that only happened once was that turning the key only resulted in chatter from the engine instead of it turning over and starting. It did this once. Changing to Battery "2" or "All" did not fix it. I kept trying for about 10 minutes off and on and finally it started working correctly. It hasn't done this since and I have not made any changes to the batteries. I have also noticed that corrosion is still an issue. The Dealer advises to remove the Cowling after every trip and wash the engine with fresh water, then spray with some CRC. I've started doing this, but I am hesitant to wash too hard and I still get corrosion.

Well, I'm about through sharing my experiences. It took me a while to make time from my busy schedule to post this, but I told Honda that I would post their response on Internet Forums and I hope this information will help someone else make a better decision on what Outboard Engine they buy. I believe I will probably go back to Mercury on my next purchase. They were always attentive to me as the customer and even fixed a blown engine that was out of warranty that saved me $5,000. I will say that the Honda Engine is a good engine. It's just that the way they designed it now, it is not suited for larger single engine boats. If you run multiple engines so the RPMs stay under 4,000 it is a good choice. Also, don't expect to communicate directly with Honda. If you don't have a good dealer to work with, find one or choose something else.

I can be contacted by email and welcome comments. If you have a story to tell (good or bad), please send it and I will post it here.

BTW, I have the broken 2002 Honda BF225 for sale. Contact me if interested.

Mark P Miller, P.E.
PO Box 1737
Gautier, MS 39553
228-218-9523

http://www.primofish.com
http://www.primoengineering.com