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Life Expectancy of BF200

Depends on how well it is maintained and how it is operated.

* Break in the engine as proscribed in the Owners Manual.
* Pull all the maintenance IAW the owners manual. (I have the dealer handle my 400 hour maintenance because I do not have all the tools to do that.)
* If something is not working right, address it immediately.
* Avoid letting the engine sit up for extended periods of time. If you must leave it sit for an extended period of time, drain all the fuel and winterize it IAW the Owner's Manual.
* Avoid jack-rabbit take-offs with a cold engine.
* Use good gas and a gas treatment to keep ethanol from separating, or use non-ethanol gas, or Valvtec-treated gas.
* Install a Racor fuel-water separator between the tank and the pump-up bulb - and check and drain it on a regular basis.
* After the break in period, run it at WOT as much as practical over the next 200 hours or so to fully seat valves and rings.

I thoroughly expect to get 3000 hours/10 years out of my 225 (which is basically the same engine as the 200).
 
First and foremost, I don't know. With that said, it is as chawk_man says about good maintenance and conservative treatment of the equipment. There are just so many variables.One way you might rationalize this question and put it into some sort of perspective is to consider today's automobile life expectancy. Most of us are very familiar with the mileage of the family grocery hauler.

Let's say you could average 50 miles per hour over the life of the vehicle. That would put the 3,000 hour life that chawk_man fully expects at a very reasonable and very do-able 150,000 mile lifespan for your car. I am a bit more demanding of my autos and expect to get over 200,000 miles which would equate to around 4,000 hours. Then, again, I've recently owned 2 cars that I drove well over 300,000 miles with no major repairs.

Of course, we ain't talkin' about cars per se and boat operations are for sure a bit different. But, it's one way of getting your head around the equation.
 
Good logic. I'd take that a step further. Remember that running an outboard is analogous to running your auto up hill most of the time. So that Honda J35A3 engine will be under more long-term strain than your typical auto. That's the key reason that the maintenance is so important, especially the oil changes. The 100 hour oil changes on the 200/225 are equivalent to a 5000 mile oil change on an auto.

On the other hand your outboard is typically not experiencing the stop-and-go acceleration patterns of a typical suburban auto. So, in terms of wear and tear on the outboard, it's driving up hill alot, but it's not going through the stop and go performance demands of the auto, and that should approximately wash out.
 
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