I tried to trim my motor down yesterday at the boat ramp after loading it to drain the water out of it and it won’t go down once it hits the two small trim rams. The outside rams continue down but the big center piston won’t go down. It’s a Yamaha 250 SHO and is still under warranty but boat shop doesn’t open until Tuesday and it will be a couple days before I can get it out of the barn due to the snow and the mud that is yet to come.

Any thoughts? Center piston have a defect and won’t go down is my thought.

Did you check fluid level? Sounds simple but it may be low if you have a leak that you didn't know about.

Y’all aren’t going to believe this. I took my boat to the local Yamaha dealer today. Dealer couldn’t figure it out either so they called Yamaha. Yamaha told them that the grease they used when the motor was new became sticky after time. The sticky grease was pushing the cylinders out of alignment causing them to bind up. They wiped the grease off of the trim pistons and off of the motor and put new grease on it. Works like is should! When I bought the boat I complained to the dealer that the trim didn’t sound right. Not like the OX66 VMAX 200 HP I had on my old boat. With the new grease the trim sounds like it should. I would never believe it if I didn’t see it for myself.

Glad it was something simple!