Mercury or Yamaha main motor

omp said:

You are leaving out the Tohatsu and Honda line. Tohatsu = 5 year warranty Honda is same

115hp motor is 359lbs for 20” shaft 2.0L block from mercury. You can go with largest displacement or for lowest weight. They are all pretty decent now days.

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In the mid range motors Honda is pretty easy to eliminate. It's a 121 pounds or 34% heavier than the Mercury. It's got to have a huge advantage to overcome that additional weight.

It really comes down a Ford vs Chevy question. Both Mercury (Tohatsu) and Yamaha are excellent motors. When I repowered several years ago it came down to a few factors: availability and price. At the time the decision was easy as Yamaha was over a grand more and nine months out on availability. I've been very happy with my Mercury.

If you do go with Mercury it's worth upgrading to the CT (command thrust) model. It's the 150 lower end on the 115 motor which has a bigger gear case and better gearing. This lets you run a bigger prop which will give you a much better hole shot when you're fully loaded. It was a $300 upgrade when I bought my motor.

I just don't understand people's fixation on the motors the government runs. I've been very involved in government procurement over the last two decades.
Just because the government buys something repeatably doesn't mean it's good. It simply means that it meets the government specifications and is the lowest cost. Sometimes you can go sole source but it's not always easy and typically not a broad pattern.