Quote:
Originally Posted by tallieho
Cost of an outboard. 5-8 4 stroke $5000.00 -$ 8000.00 or tr motor for $ 800.00
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What are you pricing here, an extra long shaft, power trim, electric start pro kicker? New motors don't come anywhere close to that price tag, and if one watches the used market there are barely used motors listed all the time for a small fraction of that.
Tex, in my experience some of your justifications for not wanting a gas motor might warrant reconsideration.
The first thing I will address is not wanting a trailer. If you go with a 12', I would say it is do-able, especially if the truck is a long box, but still less than ideal. My buddy has a 12', his truck has the 5'6" box, he got tired of that pretty quick. My current jon is a 14' and my truck is a long box and there's no way I'd have considered just hauling that boat in the box of my truck. Especially because I do a lot of fishing on my own. And IMO 2 people in a 12' jon starts getting sketchy quick if the weather isn't entirely perfect. And if you do go this route, removing a motor for transport isn't a whole lot different than having to remove the trolling motor batteries (speaking of which, you'd probably want more than one battery unless you're on tiny lakes).
As far as storage and maintenance goes, I feel you might be overthinking that. It doesn't take a whole lot of effort to deal with a newer 4 stroke motor. Don't know when or if you'll use it again? Disconnect the fuel line when you get back to the launch and let the motor die out to avoid having fuel in the carb to gum it up. Makes for a bit harder start next time, but lessens the chance of issues. I do this with my jon boat, my quad, my inverter generator. All see very infrequent use and I haven't had the need to tear into a carb since I started doing this.
Personally, I think a 14' with a 9.9hp would make for a decent combo. Can get around at a decent speed and still troll without issue. Enough room to handle a couple people, and should handle a bit rougher water.