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Buying a New 22 SLX

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juliem

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Hi, We are picking up our new Bennington 22SLX in a couple of weeks. We have the option of either a 115 HP Mercury or 150 HP Mercury. The boat is a tritoon and already equipped with hydraulic steering. The questions is - should we get the 150 HP motor? Is it worth the cost difference of $2,700. Also, what is the impact on fuel?

We would be using to boat to tow our kids on tubes and knee boards. Not sure about wakeboarding. Is 150 HP necessary for wakeboarding?

Can anyone make any recommendations?

Thanks

Julie
 
Hi Julie and welcome. If you're getting a tri-toon then go with the 150. I'm a firm believer in get all the HP you can afford and the boat will hold, but that's me. As far as pulling stuff the 150 will do it easier and you won't have to run it as hard thus saving fuel. Where do you boat? We're on a 35,000 acre lake and our 150 has gotten us back to our dock quickly when the weather turned. Hope this helps. B)
 
Julie,

Congrats on your new Bennington and I am sure you must be getting excited. If you plan to wake board and tube, you and your guests will appreciate the extra performance of the 150 HP Mercury. Definitely worth the extra $ if it fits in the budget. Good luck with your decision.
 
I grappled with the same.....and went with the 150. I figured at least half of the step up would be recaptured at sale time. Fuel economy? You will never know unless you can do a side by side comparison.

Do get the larger fuel tank 33 with either.

Again i have never heard anyone say they wished they had less power or speed (smaller motor).. Biggest consumer complaint following purchasing a boat? Wished they would have purchased a larger power plant.

The 150 provides more power out of the hole slightly higher top end all in a pontoon format. You can always throttle back....but as Mr. Scott said on Star Trek...Captain I'm giving her all she's got....

Think I covered all the standard rationales.

Some of my neighbors have 200s. Did I mention size envy? ; -)
 
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I can DEFINITELY answer that question for you. Get the 150.

We have pretty much the same boat (24SSL) with a 115. If it's just my wife and I, and our two kids (13 and 9) on the boat, the 115 is PLENTY for tubing. With a full tank, the four of us in the boat can hit 33 MPH, and 30 mph with the kids on the tube (which is scary fast for them).

BUT, if we have one more family with us, and especially two other families, the 115 is NOT enough. Tubing sucks big. Kids have no fun. With a full boat, full throttle on the 115 gets you 20 mph tops after a couple minutes of accelerating in a straight line, and turning slows the boat quickly to the low teens. It slows so much in a turn, the front of the tube nearly submerges, and its very hard to swing them out of the wake.

If I could do it over again, I would get the 150. At the time we bought it (last fall), the Verado with digital throttle and shift was the only Merc 150 option, and it was a LOT more than $2700. With hydraulic steering, it was in the $5-6k range last fall. When we test drove the boat with the 115 and hit 35 MPH, we thought the 115 was plenty. We thought wrong.

Then Mercury's new 150 comes along in Feb (Doh!) and it is MUCH cheaper than the Verado and If I could upgrade to the new 150 from my used (~30 hours) 115 for $4000, I would do that in a heartbeat. Spinzone is looking at the same upgrade and is seeing $5000 for the upgrade. So, $2700 is a no brainer in my mind.

One other thing, and it may be too late or not interest you, but we compared the 22SSL with the 24SSL and the 2 feet of difference is pretty major. You go from 11 to 13 passengers (if I remember correctly) and with almost everyone we know having 2 kids (so 4-person families) we could only take one family with us with the 22SSL. With the 24SSL and its 13 passenger limit, two families is no problem. That was key for us. So, just mentioning it in case you haven't considered that.

On fuel economy, we burn about 2.5 gallons per hour with just the 4 of us, and that's with lots of tubing (say 75% of the time tubing) and rarely using full throttle. With a full boat of people, its full throttle tubing and the burn rate is about 5.5 gallons per hour (and there's not enough HP to boot).

Get the 150! Or you'll be posting stories just like mine.
 
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Full strakes (2 on each tube) help a lot too. Forgot to mention that.

I think Bennington should look at spanning part of the hull between tubes with a solid sheet of aluminum from strake to strake (in other words, fill in the gap between the tubes like a flat-bottomed boat). Or maybe an inverted V shape between tubes...

I'm sure adding something like that to an ESP setup would mess that up completely, but on the lower-end boats like mine, with lower max HP limits, and tubes that are all the same size, I would think it would help a ton.

Course it would slice someone's head off if you ran over them... Okay, maybe not such a good idea.
 
Kaydano hit the nail on the head in his post. The 115 is not enogh motor for these boats. The limited top end gets old quick and having the ability to tube or cruise at lower rpms becomes much more important. This was a $5k mistake for buying 1 year too early.
 
Hi All - Thanks for a quick response. We are in California so we would be using the boat at Lake Tahoe. Our first trip with the boat will be at Diamond Lake. I'll talk to my husband about the 150HP (he definitely wants it). It makes sense that no one wished they has less HP. Also, I didn't think about the impact more people would have on the boat. We did look at the 24 foot boats, but they just seem so big and the price difference was also huge. The one thing I didn't realize is that I think the trailer length would have been the same for a 22' vs 24' - so storing it wouldn't have made a difference.

The next step for us is to figure our where we are going to store it. I'm thinking of putting up a metal storage canopy in my side yard. I need to talk to my dealer today about the width of the trailer - I may need to have my fence door moved a foot.

BTW - This is our first boat and based on all your responses, looks like this is going to be a lot of fun.

I'll come back and post on what we went with.

Thanks

Julie
 
Width I believe should be 8 1/2 feet, that's my understanding, don't think it is allowed to be wider, I could be wrong though.

Derrick
 
If you're going to be doing big water, as Lake Tahoe, go with the 24' boat. It's not really that much $ more, and they're more seaworthy in large waves. The front seats are also longer, the boats feel much more roomy and they carry more people.

I just bought a 24' SSLX this weekend with a Yamaha 150 hp motor. It's good for about 40 mph. Most people will find themselves cruising @ 20-25 mph normally. It's nice to have the speed to pull skiers. But, it's best if you buy at boat and motor that really suits your present and future needs. I never plan to buy another boat.

My old pontoon boat is sitting in my driveway, and I had forgotten just how large pontoon boats are. The trailer and boat are about 30' long and the top is about 13' off the ground. You really need 14' width spot to maneuver these into storage. They're like storing a 5th wheel travel trailer. Obviously, many owners have to stash their boats in storage lots.

Good luck in your boat search.
 
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Bamaman - Once you get it broke in, let me know what your top speed is with a full boat and that 150. As you probably know, Spin and I are looking to upgrade, and since you have the same boat I do, I'd really be interested in knowing exactly what I'd be getting for the money (other than "just going faster" with no real speed numbers, which is all I know right now). I know you'll get 40 with an empty boat, mostly want to know what a full load will do.

Thanks!
 
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By the way, if anyone else has a 150 and has performance info on what it can do with a full load of people, please post!
 
Kaydano: My dealer delivered my boat with a 14 pitch M Series Yamaha prop, and I'm up against the rev limiter. He's ordered a Reliance 15 pitch prop that I expect will arrive the first of the week. I'll be putting more hours on the boat next week, as we've had thunder storms for the past week. I'll let you know how my boat performs then.
 
Kaydano,

•Boat Model --------- 22 SSI

•Model Year --------- 2012

•Tube Option -------- Tri-toon w/XL Package Lifting Strakes all 3 Tubes,

•Rear Fuel Tank ----- 31 gallons

•Power Option ----- Mercury 150 4 Stroke

•Prop Specs ---------- Mercury SS 15 Pitch

•Performance ------ 40 MPH (GPS) 6 Adults 3/4 fuel 5200 rpm Mid-day 105* Parker Strip Az. rough water light wind, both bimini's open.

RiverBill
 
RiverBill said:
Kaydano,

•Boat Model --------- 22 SSI

•Model Year --------- 2012

•Tube Option -------- Tri-toon w/XL Package Lifting Strakes all 3 Tubes,

•Rear Fuel Tank ----- 31 gallons

•Power Option ----- Mercury 150 4 Stroke

•Prop Specs ---------- Mercury SS 15 Pitch

•Performance ------ 40 MPH (GPS) 6 Adults 3/4 fuel 5200 rpm Mid-day 105* Parker Strip Az. rough water light wind, both bimini's open.

RiverBill
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Wow. Guess I'll be looking for a 150... That's impressive. And helpful.

What speed do you get with a light load?
 
kaydano said:
I can DEFINITELY answer that question for you. Get the 150.

We have pretty much the same boat (24SSL) with a 115. If it's just my wife and I, and our two kids (13 and 9) on the boat, the 115 is PLENTY for tubing. With a full tank, the four of us in the boat can hit 33 MPH, and 30 mph with the kids on the tube (which is scary fast for them).

BUT, if we have one more family with us, and especially two other families, the 115 is NOT enough. Tubing sucks big. Kids have no fun. With a full boat, full throttle on the 115 gets you 20 mph tops after a couple minutes of accelerating in a straight line, and turning slows the boat quickly to the low teens. It slows so much in a turn, the front of the tube nearly submerges, and its very hard to swing them out of the wake.

If I could do it over again, I would get the 150. At the time we bought it (last fall), the Verado with digital throttle and shift was the only Merc 150 option, and it was a LOT more than $2700. With hydraulic steering, it was in the $5-6k range last fall. When we test drove the boat with the 115 and hit 35 MPH, we thought the 115 was plenty. We thought wrong.

Then Mercury's new 150 comes along in Feb (Doh!) and it is MUCH cheaper than the Verado and If I could upgrade to the new 150 from my used (~30 hours) 115 for $4000, I would do that in a heartbeat. Spinzone is looking at the same upgrade and is seeing $5000 for the upgrade. So, $2700 is a no brainer in my mind.

One other thing, and it may be too late or not interest you, but we compared the 22SSL with the 24SSL and the 2 feet of difference is pretty major. You go from 11 to 13 passengers (if I remember correctly) and with almost everyone we know having 2 kids (so 4-person families) we could only take one family with us with the 22SSL. With the 24SSL and its 13 passenger limit, two families is no problem. That was key for us. So, just mentioning it in case you haven't considered that.

On fuel economy, we burn about 2.5 gallons per hour with just the 4 of us, and that's with lots of tubing (say 75% of the time tubing) and rarely using full throttle. With a full boat of people, its full throttle tubing and the burn rate is about 5.5 gallons per hour (and there's not enough HP to boot).

Get the 150! Or you'll be posting stories just like mine.
Click to expand...
Kaydano,

Well....we ordered the 150hp! Still another 1 1/2 weeks before we pick it up. Thanks for the advise. We are sticking with the 22 foot thought...the price just keeps edging up. Plus we are towing with my Highlander so trying to keep the weight down as much as possible. The highlander has a 5k towing capacity and we are well below that the the current set up.

Thanks
 
Congrats on the choice of the 150!
 
Congrats on the new boat and excellent choice on the 150! I promise you, it was one of the wisest decisions you made, aside from buying a Bennington.
 
I am shopping for a 24' SSLX pontoon. After several weeks of research it looks like almost everyone has the same questions when it comes to trying to decide between the 32" ellipticals vs Express Tube Package and 115HP vs 150 HP . After reading all of these post it sounds like the 150 is the way to go for HP. So now I am looking for suggestions on the 32" ellipticals vs the Express Tube Package. I am concerned about buying a 24', having 8 on board and having the ability to pull 1 wakeboarder or tube with 2 aboard. Is this even possible on the 24' SSLX with either of these tube set ups? Also, I have seen an XL package mentioned a few times. Is this the same as the Express Tube Package?

Thanks in advance for any input.
 
I'm sure others will chime in here to assist you with your question regarding the express vs twin elliptical package.

Here is what I can tell you.... twin ellipticals are said to be the fastest straight line setup, while triple tubes have slightly slower speeds with more turning capabilities. Something I would consider if you are planning your purchase for towing tubes and/or boarding.

100% go with the 150hp motor. 35hp may not look like much difference on paper but I can tell you it is a world of difference on the water.

Oh yeah, if you go with triple tubes with the 150, without a doubt, get the hydraulic steering at a minimum.
 
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