Are engine hour numbers reliable?

Whenever someone is thinking of purchasing a used boat, one of the first things they consider is the number of engine hours it has. I've done a ton of work on my boat this season, and in the process accidentally disconnected the plug that connects the tachometer/hour meter to the ECM. The boat ran fine (I took it out not knowing of the disconnect), but obviously the tach and hour meter didn't function. So, my question is, is the number of engine hours stored in the ECM or the tach/hour meter gauge? I could figure it out myself by disconnecting it again and running the boat, but it's a pain to get to under the dashboard. If it's stored in the gauge, a guy could run hundreds of hours with it disconnected and then reconnect it and sell his boat as a low hour boat. And, even if its stored in the ECM, a guy could still run hundreds of hours, get a new ECM, and sell it as a low hour boat. I guess what I'm getting at is that perhaps one of the biggest factors in the value of a used boat - the number of engine hours it has - is pretty easy for a fraudulent seller to manipulate.

It is real easy, sadly. I didn't put perfect pass in my 01 mc x-10 becuase I ha to replace the tach with the pp controler. I know some of the mefi 3 to 5 ECM will store the hours so I could replace that and the hour meter. I sold my x10 at 790 hours. The sad thing is the general public myself included gets fearful when buying a boat with allot of hours some concider 500 to much. I got my x25 2012 for a steal becuase the dealer didn't want it becuase of 250 hours on it. And of course that was allot of boat for me. And I start thinking about how many hours I'm putting in it. But on the mc forum there are tons of guys with 2000 plus hours on there boats and still going strong.

On current boats hours are on the ECM. All you have to do is plug into a lap top and get the actual numbers. Meters can be off.

pretty sure the meters are just ran off an ignition switch or oil pressure switch so they can be easily tampered with or for that matter replace with one that has zero hours.

I'd bet 99.9999% of MBs show more hours on the meter than actually on the ECM. Tying the meter to a keyed up ignition is purdy dumb if you require key up to have certain critical dash functions like ballast tank status and depth.

my boat last year decided to reset it's tach, i cant remember what I was doing with the boat at the time but it was very strange, my boat is an 2006 so just make sure you dont read the tach at face value.

I had to replace my ECM on a MC and the number of hours were the same after. I had it done at the dealer so not sure if they did a transfer to the new one or anything.

Boat hours are a terrible way to measure how "used" a boat is. You'd be better off looking at the vinyl to gauge the condition of the boat. Working at a ski school, We would put 500hrs on a ski boat in 10 weeks, but the oil was changed weekly and the engines were still warm when we cranked them up in the morning. On the other hand, a 5 year old boat with 75 hrs and the vinyl looks like crap...run for the hills.

There is a lot more to consider than engine hours when looking at a used boat.

My vinyl looks like s**t but the motor is well take care of & purrs like a kitten. If the wife would let me blow a few grand the vinyl would be replaced

Originally Posted by racer808

My vinyl looks like s**t but the motor is well take care of & purrs like a kitten. If the wife would let me blow a few grand the vinyl would be replaced

I have the exact same thing.

It was more a comment on misuse. Vinyl wears and tears, but if you have low hours and the boat is sun baked, it was not taken care of. I'd rather have a boat with higher hours that has been well taken care of. That was my point.

I don't even use my boat any more for fear of putting to many hours on it!

Just crossed into the 500 hour territory this week and it's an 08 230 boat so it has been ran a good bit. The issue we ran into was the previous owner before us didnt take great care of it. We bought it with 365 hours and it is now a nicer, cleaner, prettier, and more reliable boat than it was when we bought it. So like Justin said, hours aren't everything. Really I would worry about hours the least. Look at cleanliness of the boat, scratches in the gel, and SUN DAMAGE, tell-tell sign someone took no care of their boat is sun damage.

Hours are typically irrelevant. Preventative maintenance, on time maintenace, and taking care of your boat are everything. We've had camp boats roll through our shop that were a 2 year old boat with 1500 hours on the engine and perfect compression. Yes the interiors were not great, the boat was a little beat cosmetically, but the engine was solid without a single running issue. This was truly a 2 year old boat with 1500 hours and was resold for half the cost of what it would run new. Current owner has about 200 hours on it and it hasn't come back with a single issue. It is all about how you take care of your boat.

Verifying hours is a different story. Most often then not, you can find actaul hours stored on the engines ECM. These engines typically require a laptop and software to pull the hours from the ECM. Gauges on the other hand can be very unreliable. In the early 2000's nautique had electronic gauges that often had issues and needed to be replaced with a gauge update kit. Anyone that had this issue and had gauges replaced would have started at 0 on the gauge hour meter, but actual hours should still be stored on ECM.