Getting a pontoon boat from my neighbor and it has a 2000 Honda 4 stroke 40 on it . It is having a new water pump put on it as we speek . Was wondering if they are good motors

Have them do a compression check,..

Really hard to get parts.

IMO, The Hondas are some of the best on the market if not the best. I owned one for 12 years ran it 12 months out the year 2-3 times a week. It was the 30 hp 3 cylinder. As good as it was I will not ever own another reason being qualified service shops are few and far between unless you are on the coast. When I had mine it was close to 100 miles one way to a Honda Certified Mechanic and shop.

I owned a boat with a Honda motor and can't say that I never had a problem with it in the 10 years that I had it, but, the ones that I did have were minor compared to the ones you read about with the other major brand 4 stroke motors. Honda was the first to put 4 strokes on boats and the rest are trying to play catch up on dependability and maintenance costs once the motors have over 300hrs on them. It's not unusual to find Honda motors with over that and haven't had anything done except scheduled maintenance. They are good motors but not the fastest when they are put on bass boats but are fine on a pontoon. I had the Honda that I owned on a Ranger 521VX and it was fast enough for me and never broke down on the water and the fish was still in the lake no matter how fast I got to my fishing hole. I have never had problems getting what parts I required to fix mine but that may have been because I didn't need anything major.

Want to know what motors live long ?
Oyster season just started, look at what these guys and the crab boats run, you'll see what lives and what doesn't.

You'll never see
Evinrudes
Honda
Tohatsu
Merc DFI
The other 99% are pretty well even split with Zukes and Yamaha 4 strokes.
These guys pound out 1,200 hours a season. Crabbers are double that.