Awesome job Bill. Came up with your video as I am looking to pick a 2000 Challenger for my family. I had a question, I have two options of boats one that has there twin rotax and theres another one for sale nearby with a merc 240. Do you recommend one over the other in terms of maintenance and availability of spare parts? cheers
Hi David, thank you very much. A 2000 challenger would have the Rotax two-stroke motors 717 or 787 both great motors . I have limited experience with them, but I do own a jetski with a 787 two-stroke motor. They are extremely easy to work on if you are moderately mechanical. They also have many parts available for them. From everything that I read on these forms, the Mercury engines are very problematic to get parts for. I understand they are good engines but hard to get parts for and even harder to find people to work on. If you need somebody to do the work. That said, depending on where you are, you may find it difficult to find a mechanic to work on a two-stroke Rotax motor as well. Furthermore, I would suggest that having a boat with two motors would be superior to a single motor boat for a number of reasons. If it were me, I would be steering clear of the mercury motors, and now that I own a 2stroke Rotax motor. I am very comfortable recommending them. All that said :-) if you could afford it, I would recommend moving up to a 2005 or newer challenger 180 with the four stroke motor. Much more dependable, more powerful and mechanics everywhere available to work on them. Hope that helps, if you have any more questions feel free and good luck.
Awesome job Bill. Came up with your video as I am looking to pick a 2000 Challenger for my family. I had a question, I have two options of boats one that has there twin rotax and theres another one for sale nearby with a merc 240. Do you recommend one over the other in terms of maintenance and availability of spare parts? cheers
Hi David, thank you very much. A 2000 challenger would have the Rotax two-stroke motors 717 or 787 both great motors . I have limited experience with them, but I do own a jetski with a 787 two-stroke motor. They are extremely easy to work on if you are moderately mechanical. They also have many parts available for them. From everything that I read on these forms, the Mercury engines are very problematic to get parts for. I understand they are good engines but hard to get parts for and even harder to find people to work on. If you need somebody to do the work. That said, depending on where you are, you may find it difficult to find a mechanic to work on a two-stroke Rotax motor as well. Furthermore, I would suggest that having a boat with two motors would be superior to a single motor boat for a number of reasons. If it were me, I would be steering clear of the mercury motors, and now that I own a 2stroke Rotax motor. I am very comfortable recommending them. All that said :-) if you could afford it, I would recommend moving up to a 2005 or newer challenger 180 with the four stroke motor. Much more dependable, more powerful and mechanics everywhere available to work on them. Hope that helps, if you have any more questions feel free and good luck.