I had a Mercury Force 120 (1997) on my boat. It was a good motor, that was until FlowingWells Marine indicated that it needed a carburator overhaul. They failed to attached to carb. bowl on the bottom carburator and it came off while running across the lake. It isn't Mercury's fault that these idiots didn't attach the bowl to the carburator.
It is a loud motor, especially when running at 100% all the time, and it sucked down a lot of fuel at 100% running. I like the motor and will get it rebuilt, and maybe someday I will put it on a smaller boat. I just decided that for now I wanted to invest in a larger motor now and get my boat performing better. The Force was simply too little power for my boat.
It was very reliable, although it did take a while starting "Cold" in the "Cold" and I am not sure that wasn't related to cables.
Even though it has a blown head, I have had several offers from Florida, one from Seattle, and even one locally intereted in purchasing my blown Force 120. However, my boat is financed through Bank of American, and although I upgraded with a more attractive and larger motor on the boat, the bank indicated that I could not sell the old motor (Makes no sense to me).
Just make certain that you use the correct, or even higher mixture of oil in the fuel. It may smoke, ALOT (after all it is carburated) when first starting (fishing guides down wind will love you
), it is a good motor. Especially if it is "properly" maintained by a Certified FORCE Mechanic, and not just some Mechanice with the Mercury/Mercruiser sign hanging over their garage door. There is at least one of them in the Dallas area.
