Briggs & Stratton 5 hp outboard

[Raftman1979]

I'm considering buying a 5 hp Briggs & Stratton outboard. They're $700 or $800 new, sold at Cabela's, Bass Pro, Gander Mountain, etc. I don't know anything about them. I'm pretty sure they use a standard vertical shaft push mower engine and that they don't exhaust underwater.

Can anybody who owns one of these things tell me if they're worth the price?

[Manie B]

i was told that they are going out of production because volumes were too low

rather stick to well known makes mercury yamaha etc.

[Butch .H]

Briggs & Stratton are known as Breek en Staan in SA:P

[TollyWally]

Fresh water only, and even so it's a step backwards from a clean used conventional outboard. LOL my opinion, worth price paid! good luck with what ever your choice ends up being.

[Raftman1979]

I don't need a salt-water engine. I live in Illinois. Marketing info I've read say they're supposedly good for muddy water. They're air-cooled, so they don't have water intakes down by the prop. My dad and I blew his 40 horse Mercury when seaweed blocked the intake.

I'm familiar with Briggs & Stratton engines, as I grew up with go-karts and minibikes, and the old man didn't chip in one cent, so I found myself putting engines together with parts from several broken ones quite often. I figure I can rebuild a Briggs engine in my sleep. And since these engines are used on so many things, parts can easily be found.

It's the lower units I know nothing about. I'm wondering if Briggs & Stratton builds it's lower units here in the USA or if they import garbage from China and just bolt their engines to it.

[MattZ]

They're cheap, at the expense of noise. Do you really want your lawn mower engine like four feet from your ears? A rather ill contrived idea if you ask me.

[ondarvr]

I think the air cooled part in very muddy or weedy water would be the only reason you "might" even consider one.

Loud, vibrate a great deal, relatively low quality, short lived, warning says not to troll with it and these are the good points. You could get an excellent used brand name small outboard for the same or less money. People sometimes say that these small B&S motors last a long time because they've had the same mower for 8 to 10 years. Think about it, it gets used for an hour or so once a week during less than half the year, that's maybe 20 hours per year. It doesn't take long for them to start smoking and using oil, this means it’s wearing out. Small outboards seem to last almost forever with even minimal care, I have a 6HP from the late 60's that runs great and is light years ahead of a B&S in quality and technology. I may troll with it for 10 hours a day, so in two days of use it would have the same number hours as what's put on mower in year, it's been used that way since new.