kaydano
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First, I'm guessing this will be rather long, so if you are NOT currently trying to decide between the 115 and the 150, you might find your time better spent elsewhere. If you are struggling with this question, like I was, hopefully my story will give you some things to consider and think about to help you with your decision.
So we finally pulled the trigger on the upgrade from the Mercury 115 four stroke to the new 150 Fourstroke just this week (four days ago). It was a pile of cash, but it ended up being the right decision for us. We had the 115 for 2 years, and it just wasn't cutting it.
I'll jump right in with the 150's speed results. With a light boat (just me, about 1/3rd tank of gas, no coolers) and a 15P Enertia SS prop (thanks again Todd!) I was able to hit 41 mph last night, again I was out by myself. Today we took 9 people out tubing, we had a FULL tank of gas (16 gallons more), two coolers of ice and water, and the max speed was still 39 mph! Wow! It was my wife and I, our 10 year old son, and six 14-year olds, so this wasn't exactly 9 adults. But we had coolers, a lot more gas, and the top speed hung in there MUCH more than I thought. I was very pleasantly surprised. With the 115, the top speed drops significantly when you add more people. With the 115 we would have lost 10 mph pretty easily, instead of just 2 mph with the 150. Now we can now take out more of our kid's friends at one time and not be embarrassed! We would NEVER have taken a group that big out tubing with the 115. It was marginal at best with just 2 or 3 kids when we had the 115. The nine of us had a ball today.
Okay, so how did the 150 do tubing? Awesome. I could do almost everything I wanted, except I did have a little trouble dumping the two 14 year old boys off the tube. Pretty strong boys, and they were holding on for their lives, but they came off once I figured out how to drive it (I was used to the 115, and so I didn't know you could actually do certain things that the 150 can do). I was really whipping them outside the wake though. I probably shouldn't have been that aggressive, but they literally asked for it. That and the fact that I just got the 150 a couple days ago! Hey, I had to see what it could do...
Anyway, if you want to be able to give a wild ride when tubing, forget the 115. Go with the 150.
Can you tube behind the 115? Sure. But it will be full throttle all the time just to get them a little ways out of the wake. When you turn, the speed plummets. Then you have to wait for the acceleration, and it just doesn't work that well. With the 115, I was at full throttle CONSTANTLY. With the 150, I was between 4000 and 4500 rpm and that was FAR better tubing than the 115 was at nearly 6000 rpm. The motor was breathing easy, except when I was really whipping those two boys out wide and went full throttle for a few seconds just before the whip. I'm guessing they were probably going 30-35 mph as the "whip cracked". Really, that was too fast. Too dangerous, and I'm not likely to do that again, but what happened is what happened today, good or bad.
Steering. I only have cable steering. The 115 was fairly hard to turn. All my strength wouldn't let me steer it with one hand. It was two hands and hard cranking on the wheel. Here's the interesting thing: The 150 was pretty much the same! I really couldn't tell the difference. So is the 150 harder to steer? Sure it is, but I was running the tubers at 4000-4500 rpm on the 150. On the 115, it was wide open up in the 5500-6000 range. My guess is the prop torque was much less on the 150 due to the lower rpms, which made it pretty much the same steering difficulty as the 115 at full throttle.
Gas? It does use more gas but then I drove it quite a bit harder. If I drove the 150 at the same speeds as the 115 performed tubing, I'm guessing I would have actually used LESS gas with the 150, because it was breathing MUCH easier. Apples to apples, I'd say full throttle on the 115 (upwards of 6000 rpm) was about equivalent to 3500-4000 rpm on the 150. Big difference.
So bottom line is if you plan to do water sports, and your kids are small (7-10 years for example) the 115 will be okay if it's just mom/dad and two kids. But your kids will quickly outgrow it. They get bigger, heavier, and they have more friends as they get older who are also bigger and heavier. If you expect to trade in the 115 later on, maybe trade the whole boat in a few years, maybe the 115 would be okay for you. If your plan is to keep the boat/motor long term, go with the 150. We haven't pulled a skier or wake boarder, but from what I've read, the 150 is more than enough for that. I skied behind a 35 HP motor as a kid. 2 skis, but I had a blast. Course I didn't really know much different, but I could jump the wake with 2 skis. If I had to guess, with the size of the tube, and having 3 people on it vs 1 skier, I'd say if you can tube well, you won't have trouble skiing, wakeboarding, etc.
Okay so what if you don't do water sports? No kids? No grandkids? Should you still get the 150? Good question. Lots of people say "No one ever complained of too much HP" and "It will ever be as cheap as it is right now". I'm not knocking the people that say that one bit here. Both statements are true. I've said both myself. But if you're looking at shelling out $4-7k for a 150 over a 115, including hydraulic steering, and affordability is important to you, those statements really don't get you to the decision.
It is a hard decision. I spent almost 2 years with the 115. I've complained here a lot about it. I was hoping it would be "enough". I even tried the spitfire prop (which is pretty amazing), but we came to the realization that the upgrade to 150 was inevitable. The kids were already starting to get bored. Since our 115 was depreciating fast, we pulled the trigger now. And we needed it right now too.
Another consideration regarding speed (if you don't do water sports) is wind. It's loud. At 25 mph, people start holding on to things and raise their voices to be heard. At 30 mph, it's hold your hats and yell, so most of the conversation simply stops. At 35 mph, everyone is looking into the wind and silent. Just thought I'd mention this as it is a real-world boating factor to consider when you're thinking about how much speed you will use.
How many passengers will you typically have? A full boat REALLY drags down a 115. A salesman that is just trying to sell you a boat will not load up the boat with people. It will be husband/wife, maybe a kid or two, and the salesmen. The 115 WILL impress you. Don't be fooled. 6 people really start to load a boat down. You can easily expect a loss of 5-10 mph with a 115. A full boat, and expect half speed or less. Here's where the 150 shines. You won't notice the drop off NEARLY as much as you would with the 115.
If you plan to "party boat", with lots of people and just slow cruising, a 115 is FAR more than you need.
Getting back to the dock quick can be a factor. The speed of the 150 comes in handy if a storm pops up, or an emergency (medical or bowel).
How agressive of a driver are you? Do you have a sports car, and not just for show, you really like to drive it hard? Love the feeling of raw power and acceleration? Get the 150. Enough said.
Back to steering, it can be a workout with cable steering. Ask yourself if you're up to the task, especially with tubing. After a couple hours of tubing, I was fairly worn out just from steering. I constantly "S curve" when I pull tubes, so just understand that. Going straight is no big deal!
Weight - The 150 is noticeably heavier. I'd have to look up the specs. It's not a lot. If I had to guess, I'd say less than 50 lbs difference, but it's hanging way out back on the transom, and my boat sits even more "bow high" than it did before. Not sure why I mentioned this, as I can't think of any reason it would be important, just something I noticed.
Wow, this is longer than I thought it would be. Hope it helps...
So we finally pulled the trigger on the upgrade from the Mercury 115 four stroke to the new 150 Fourstroke just this week (four days ago). It was a pile of cash, but it ended up being the right decision for us. We had the 115 for 2 years, and it just wasn't cutting it.
I'll jump right in with the 150's speed results. With a light boat (just me, about 1/3rd tank of gas, no coolers) and a 15P Enertia SS prop (thanks again Todd!) I was able to hit 41 mph last night, again I was out by myself. Today we took 9 people out tubing, we had a FULL tank of gas (16 gallons more), two coolers of ice and water, and the max speed was still 39 mph! Wow! It was my wife and I, our 10 year old son, and six 14-year olds, so this wasn't exactly 9 adults. But we had coolers, a lot more gas, and the top speed hung in there MUCH more than I thought. I was very pleasantly surprised. With the 115, the top speed drops significantly when you add more people. With the 115 we would have lost 10 mph pretty easily, instead of just 2 mph with the 150. Now we can now take out more of our kid's friends at one time and not be embarrassed! We would NEVER have taken a group that big out tubing with the 115. It was marginal at best with just 2 or 3 kids when we had the 115. The nine of us had a ball today.
Okay, so how did the 150 do tubing? Awesome. I could do almost everything I wanted, except I did have a little trouble dumping the two 14 year old boys off the tube. Pretty strong boys, and they were holding on for their lives, but they came off once I figured out how to drive it (I was used to the 115, and so I didn't know you could actually do certain things that the 150 can do). I was really whipping them outside the wake though. I probably shouldn't have been that aggressive, but they literally asked for it. That and the fact that I just got the 150 a couple days ago! Hey, I had to see what it could do...
Anyway, if you want to be able to give a wild ride when tubing, forget the 115. Go with the 150.
Can you tube behind the 115? Sure. But it will be full throttle all the time just to get them a little ways out of the wake. When you turn, the speed plummets. Then you have to wait for the acceleration, and it just doesn't work that well. With the 115, I was at full throttle CONSTANTLY. With the 150, I was between 4000 and 4500 rpm and that was FAR better tubing than the 115 was at nearly 6000 rpm. The motor was breathing easy, except when I was really whipping those two boys out wide and went full throttle for a few seconds just before the whip. I'm guessing they were probably going 30-35 mph as the "whip cracked". Really, that was too fast. Too dangerous, and I'm not likely to do that again, but what happened is what happened today, good or bad.
Steering. I only have cable steering. The 115 was fairly hard to turn. All my strength wouldn't let me steer it with one hand. It was two hands and hard cranking on the wheel. Here's the interesting thing: The 150 was pretty much the same! I really couldn't tell the difference. So is the 150 harder to steer? Sure it is, but I was running the tubers at 4000-4500 rpm on the 150. On the 115, it was wide open up in the 5500-6000 range. My guess is the prop torque was much less on the 150 due to the lower rpms, which made it pretty much the same steering difficulty as the 115 at full throttle.
Gas? It does use more gas but then I drove it quite a bit harder. If I drove the 150 at the same speeds as the 115 performed tubing, I'm guessing I would have actually used LESS gas with the 150, because it was breathing MUCH easier. Apples to apples, I'd say full throttle on the 115 (upwards of 6000 rpm) was about equivalent to 3500-4000 rpm on the 150. Big difference.
So bottom line is if you plan to do water sports, and your kids are small (7-10 years for example) the 115 will be okay if it's just mom/dad and two kids. But your kids will quickly outgrow it. They get bigger, heavier, and they have more friends as they get older who are also bigger and heavier. If you expect to trade in the 115 later on, maybe trade the whole boat in a few years, maybe the 115 would be okay for you. If your plan is to keep the boat/motor long term, go with the 150. We haven't pulled a skier or wake boarder, but from what I've read, the 150 is more than enough for that. I skied behind a 35 HP motor as a kid. 2 skis, but I had a blast. Course I didn't really know much different, but I could jump the wake with 2 skis. If I had to guess, with the size of the tube, and having 3 people on it vs 1 skier, I'd say if you can tube well, you won't have trouble skiing, wakeboarding, etc.
Okay so what if you don't do water sports? No kids? No grandkids? Should you still get the 150? Good question. Lots of people say "No one ever complained of too much HP" and "It will ever be as cheap as it is right now". I'm not knocking the people that say that one bit here. Both statements are true. I've said both myself. But if you're looking at shelling out $4-7k for a 150 over a 115, including hydraulic steering, and affordability is important to you, those statements really don't get you to the decision.
It is a hard decision. I spent almost 2 years with the 115. I've complained here a lot about it. I was hoping it would be "enough". I even tried the spitfire prop (which is pretty amazing), but we came to the realization that the upgrade to 150 was inevitable. The kids were already starting to get bored. Since our 115 was depreciating fast, we pulled the trigger now. And we needed it right now too.
Another consideration regarding speed (if you don't do water sports) is wind. It's loud. At 25 mph, people start holding on to things and raise their voices to be heard. At 30 mph, it's hold your hats and yell, so most of the conversation simply stops. At 35 mph, everyone is looking into the wind and silent. Just thought I'd mention this as it is a real-world boating factor to consider when you're thinking about how much speed you will use.
How many passengers will you typically have? A full boat REALLY drags down a 115. A salesman that is just trying to sell you a boat will not load up the boat with people. It will be husband/wife, maybe a kid or two, and the salesmen. The 115 WILL impress you. Don't be fooled. 6 people really start to load a boat down. You can easily expect a loss of 5-10 mph with a 115. A full boat, and expect half speed or less. Here's where the 150 shines. You won't notice the drop off NEARLY as much as you would with the 115.
If you plan to "party boat", with lots of people and just slow cruising, a 115 is FAR more than you need.
Getting back to the dock quick can be a factor. The speed of the 150 comes in handy if a storm pops up, or an emergency (medical or bowel).
How agressive of a driver are you? Do you have a sports car, and not just for show, you really like to drive it hard? Love the feeling of raw power and acceleration? Get the 150. Enough said.
Back to steering, it can be a workout with cable steering. Ask yourself if you're up to the task, especially with tubing. After a couple hours of tubing, I was fairly worn out just from steering. I constantly "S curve" when I pull tubes, so just understand that. Going straight is no big deal!
Weight - The 150 is noticeably heavier. I'd have to look up the specs. It's not a lot. If I had to guess, I'd say less than 50 lbs difference, but it's hanging way out back on the transom, and my boat sits even more "bow high" than it did before. Not sure why I mentioned this, as I can't think of any reason it would be important, just something I noticed.
Wow, this is longer than I thought it would be. Hope it helps...
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