Can anyone tell me why you don't see any Suzuki outboards in the area lakes, but they are all over the Tex/La coast in saltwater.
Mercs and Yamahas up here. Is this just marketing, or something else? I know Charger was selling their boats with Suzukis for a while.
Your thoughts...

Dealers to service them are rare inland

They're hard to porp and slow on bass boats... We're starting to see some on tri-toons... Dan

Suzuki outboards. Not quite the performance of others on bass boats. Great motors for reliability and fuel mileage. Super quiet.

That’s all the guys in our group run on bay boats. 4 Suzuki’s. 2 300HP, 1 200HP and 1 175 HP.

Pretty simple motors. Easy to work on but as said above most that work in them are coastal oriented. We have not had any issues that we didn’t cause. It trashed the lower unit on mine hitting something hard. Bent the shaft and cracked the bearing housing . $3k to get it rebuilt. Then repeated that 8 months later. Both bad decisions by me.

Mine is the 200 on a 22 Majek Extreme. It’s probably 5 to 7 mph slower than either a SHO or Mercury Pro XS 200. It turns a pretty large diameter prop on lower gear ratio. Top speed is 45 with normal load and 2 guys.it could probably turn a little more pitch prop. The way it’s propped it gets up quick. Put a 250 SHO or Pro XS on the boat and right prop for speed it’s 60 to 65 mph boat. Speed isn’t that big a deal unless you tournament fish. Those speed guys are running Simmons Custom Boats at 80 mph + or some other brand targeting speed.

Motor had 6 year warranty. I don’t have a lot of hours on it. Around 200 or so. I don’t get out as much as I would like. Need to change that in 2024. Been busy the last few years.

One of the guys with the 300 had about 2,000 hrs on a 150 on a 22ft Blazer Bay.. Zero issues with that motor.

Love the motor. Only thing I would buy if I got another boat.

200 Suzuki Inline 4, weighs 520 with 2.5:1 gear ratio.
200 SHO V6, weighs 529 with 1.75:1 gear ratio.

About the same max rpm for both.

SHO will be faster. I would expect the Suzuki in the shop less.

Go to Texoma, I see a lot of the Suzuki’ s on the striper guide boats running around the lake. I seldom see one on a bass boat. There’s a couple of larger dealers in the state of Oklahoma.

Thx for the responses, If the Suzuki is more dependable, I would rather have that then top speed. Heck, they should offer a 250 with a different gear ratio.
Sounds like their marketing is the problem. I would have bought one if there was a good dealer/ service shop around.

I fish down at Dauphin Island, Alabama and you see them down there. The guide/charter I use has twin 300 Suzuki's on his boat and they are probably the #2 motor down there; those guys have nothing but praise for them. Yamaha is absolutely #1; Honda probably #3, Mercury dead last and there are probably over a thousand boats or better down there at any given time.

My tourny partners and his other tourny partner both run Suzukis. If I ever buy new or repower it will be the only motor I'll run. Both boats are Rangers. Both 521s. Both boats will run 70-71 full tilt. The amount of lift and handling that 250SS has is ridiculous compared to their previous motors.

If you like a Suzuki and have a servicing dealer or shop that you like then it's a no brainer. Buy one. I prefer a different brand but I'd give the Suzuki a chance if the price was right etc.

I had one for 2 years and couldn't find anyone that would work on it for me. Won't ever have another one.

There is no doubt Suzuki makes great outboards, but like everyone has said, they’ll still need fixed.

In my opinion Honda is an even better choice, there are pockets in the Midwest where enough are solid that there are good service centers for them.

Yamaha and Mercury rule freshwater bass and multi species boats right now, everything else seems to come and go.

suzuki has had a marketing problem for years they will come out with a new motor an say it preforms great but not like the mercurys or yamahas they are dependable.

I think Charger was installing Hondas, not Suzukis. They (Suzuki) don’t have a 20” 225hp for bassboats, kinda a bit odd, but I guess the 250 is king now.

Yeah, Fishing University with Charlie and his co-host always ran Honda's on the back of their Chargers.... Dan