Which motor is preferred? Pro XS 250 4 stroke or 250 SHO? Why?

If I had to make that decision today, I'd buy the Yamaha, simply because history says to give them at least a year to find all the bugs in a new designed motor.

Thank you Pat.

Which color paint matches the boat better?

They both look good on every boat I am looking at but I get your point. That may be the ,biggest difference.

With the exception of maybe the original 3.0 Mercs, I can't think of a single "NEW" motor that didn't suffer a good amount of pain when they were introduced.
Change my mind.

off topic question. Sorry I am dyslexic and I dont write so well Pat. I have been a reading the board for years and just signed up. I have read many many of your post on motors. I was hopping you can answer something a buddy and I hada buddy and my self were having he has a 2000's something motor I dont know the details but it blew the power head already. what is it you seem to see this issue more on the newer motors and not say 1996 and older or am I just mistaking on this. I have never had a motor now the 1998 I am sure they had a lot of hours on them not one time have I ever had a power head issue. I have never know anyone personally who has had such an issue. on the older motors. but 3 people I know with unites 2006-2014 have all had catastrophic failures. sorry to hi jack this thread

It's pretty simple, two stroke motors use the fuel/oil mixture to lube and cool the inside of the motor. The DFI motors cut back that amount to save fuel, but it costs reliability.

I never thought about that thanks

If it's a new motor....Not sure. I purchased a new 2011 Phoenix with a 250 SHO. Thing ran great with no issues - until this past year. I had a 6 yr extended warranty, which ran out in June 2017. This past November, I was informed by my local dealer that it has a cracked powerhead and piston damage. Called Yamaha, since I only had 240 hours on it, and they refused to cover it since I was out of warranty. I have noticed that there was a number of years where the Yamaha SHO (2009-20013) seemed to have a major issue with cracked heads. btw.... I never had an issue with it making oil as was common for that era of SHOs and had it serviced every year. Replaced the water pump every other year.

Last week, I picked my boat up from a dealer with a new 250 Merc 4S on it. Hopefully, I'll have far more hours on it than the SHO.