evinrude e-tec

[carolina-rig-01]

well i had to go get my boat today from the mechanic. turns out i had a bad seal that was making quite a mess on my garage floor. anyways i was telling him that my wife and i are more than likley going to buy a new stratos this spring and would like his imput on a few motors. basically he said that he would go opti max or e tec. mainly because yamaha dealers are hard to come by around here and their parts are big bucks. i mentioned that i heard that the e tec's oil is really high. he said that evinrude's xd 50 oil is the same oil that we have had for years and it meets all the specifications for the e tec. however he said that the xd 100 oil was made special for the e tec. this is where the difference comes in. apparently the oil tank on the e tec is on the motor itself and you have to take the cowl off to add oil. he said that if you run the xd 50 it will cost half as much as the xd 100 but you will use twice as much. you can have your motor programed for the xd 100 but in doing so you can only run this oil from now on. this being a problem if you are at a lake where a evinrude dealer isn't close by. basically i know more about it than i did but i am even more confused. cost twice as much but use half as much? he did say however that they set it up so that if you use your boat an average amount then generally you won't have to add oil but once a year. sounds good since you have to undress your motor to do so.