O/B or I/O -- Which to purchase?

[wazzu98]

I have narrowed my used boat search to two nearly identical boats with different engines. The boat is a 18ft, '93 bayliner capri, open bow. The only difference in the engine and slight difference in exterior and interior condition.

Boat #1 -- 3.0L, 4cyl, 135 HP I/O with approx 100 hrs. Boat has numerous scratches (leads me to believe it wasn't taken care of)!

Boat #2 -- 120 HP Merc O/B with approx 40 hrs. Boat is a '93, but engine has not ran since '95. Starter was replaced just before selling. (I am worried that this engine may not run well, due to it sitting for 8 yrs)

Which would be the better engine. I have been leaning toward the I/O, cause that is what I have been around (never owned a boat before). However the O/B boat is in much better condition and is only $500 more.

Any help on which engine will perform better?

[Willallison]

Performance from the two boats should be very similar. The sterndrive would be a little heavier than the o/b but has an extra 15hp to compensate for that.
Neither engine has done any significant work - the o/b in fact has done so little you'd have to be a bit sceptical about the No of hours quoted. Indeed I'd be wondering why either has done so little.
There a thousand things to look for, so if you haven't had much boating experience - spend a hundred bucks and get a qualified marine surveyor to check them out for you

[Jeff]

Welcome to the forums wazzu98 - I know you didn't know where to post this, but I went ahead and merged the two identical threads because it's confusing to double post the same thing in multiple areas (I didn't want you to think things were disappearing on their own )

I personally prefer stern drives because they sound and feel better to me and older outboards tend to have a smoking / fume / exhaust habit that make them not so pleasant to be around at idle... especially if you have passengers in the aft seats. As Will said it's interesting that neither has many hours at all. Without seeing it I'm not sure what to think about lots and lots of scratches in 100 hours - maybe the boat spent a lot of time sitting poorly tied at a dock? And I'm not a mechanic, but I'd have one look the engines over for you, and I take it the OB which sat for 8 years will call for an inspection and a little care before firing it up - always better to error on the side of caution.