www.iFourWinns.com

This, I would go away from outdrives. Bellows are a minimum $1,800 per drive. Plus other maintenance items. Find V drives.

Wow! I assume that is full blown service of drives? My drive bellows (Volvo Penta SX Cobra) cost $60.00 from Marine Parts Express. I do them myself. Even if I had my local shop do them, they are only about $250.00-$350.00 (depending on ease of drive removal).

I do agree on large boats, inboards are the way to go.

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1996 205 Sundowner DLX
5.0FL Volvo SX Cobra
Tow Veh: 2012 Nissan Frontier Pro-4X

Your price is more inline with what I've seen

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2007 358 T-5.7GXi IB
Previous Boats
'08 H240, '08 V318, '04 268, '04 225

It really depends on what you have to have done.
If you are a trailer boater as many on here are it's changing the drive oil and pulling the drive 1x a season for maintenance, including checking alignment. The bellows could last 5-7 years, or even longer if not stored all the way up.
If you leave your boat in the water, then there is more of a concern with seal leaks, bellows leaks and corrosion. You might want to be replacing the bellows (at least the driveshaft one) at 5 years.
And if you leave your boat in salt water like I do, then you really have to be on top of it or the repairs will get to a point that is hard to justify.
Having said that I think I paid about 350 to have the bellows and gimble bearing done when I first had the boat. As noted the bellows is not expensive nor is it hard to do on a Cobra or Volvo SX. More of a pain on an Alpha. Since I have R+R'd it each season I have not had to change the gimble or u-joints since then.
I'd guess that a standard outdrive service is between 2-300 a year for drive oil changes and R+R for the maintenance checks. If you need a bellows or other repairs then of course it will be more.

What I also have to do, that is only needed if you are moored in salt water, is to split the drive every 2 years to clean out the barnacles that grow in the water intakes. If you don't you will eventually have overheating problems.
That's as far as I have gone with OD maintenance, I don't have the special tools to do seal replacements except for the bearing cover and water tube cover in the lower unit, those are easy. Prop shaft seals and input shaft seal I take it to the shop.

Shift cables, well I decided to learn how to adjust the Cobra system this summer, I had collected the 3 special OMC tools and the OMC service bulletins. Overall it took a couple of hours but I was rewarded with a VERY smooth shifting Cobra, even better than when the shop did it for me when I first got the boat. So contrary to what you read on the 'net it is not that hard if you are patient and have basic mechanical aptitude. I have not had to take the boat to the shop for drive work of any kind for about 8 years. The yearly drive maintenance charge was at least 250 each time so there you go....that's 2 grand I did not have to spend....

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88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

To be honest, if you have an SX or a SX-DPS, rather than the later SX-A. type, they are reliable and routine maintenance is very easy indeed and costs should be low. If anything goes wrong inside the drive, well, that's very specialised and I don't fancy doing it myself ( or guessing at the cost).

I was put off buying a lovely 2006 Vista 378 as it had the IPS pod drives. Not so much for the concept or the service costs, but for the potential repair costs if something went wrong ( they are now on at least the 6th or more revision of those drives, they were revised for a reason!).

Volvo's latest designs don't seem to be quite as reliable as the SX/DP series but then usually people only post when there's a problem not to say they had no problems at all. In fact the real Volvo aficionados seem to think that the older style 270/280/290s were the best and that the SX copied 'American' features such as the gimble design which they feel is inferior to that earlier design. What actually seemed to have happened is that OMC's Cobra had early problems, and the company was in financial trouble. Volvo saw this as an opportunity to get OMC's transom design, which used the same cut out as Merc. This, to Volvo was a big advantage, since boat designers could use one cut out for both, thus making Volvo's drives more easily marketable. OMC did the same thing after all when they changed from the Stringer mount drives to the Cobra in '86. So Volvo and OMC go into business, the Cobra gets re-designed to use Volvo style cone clutch shifting (oddly OMC already had used this design, on the King Cobra that came on the big block engines starting in '90). So if the SX was actually designed by OMC or Volvo no one seems to know, but for sure OMC could have done it, if you look at a cut away of that King Cobra its like a larger more HD version of the SX with one difference, the impeller was not on the engine but on the rear of the upper gear housing just like the dog clutch Cobras.....

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88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

Explain exactly which one's of the 3 series of IPS drives that VP makes has been revised 6 times. And, what were the revisions to the actual drives.

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One of 4 Previous (Sold) Boats:
2000 Four Winns 268 Vista

Current Boat: 2004 Chaparral 235 ssi cuddy

That's a great summary Lou. A Volvo SX/DP including the Cone Clutch, but with the raw water pump on the rear of the upper housing would have been the cat's meow. Apparently that's what the King Cobra had. The King Cobra was/is a great drive except for the lack of available parts.

Here is some more interesting history of OMC outdrives (which is a part of our Volvo History as well):
http://www.glmmarine.com/30yearsomc.html
One thing I learned in that article: While I was familiar with the "Stringer Drives", I did not know that the trim could be adjusted by raising or lowering the front engine mount.
My father had an OMC Stringer with 350cid (we didn't know what 5.7 Liters were back then) on a John Almond 23' in the early 1970's

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"Knot Easy" 2000 Horizon 240 Volvo 5.7GS /SX
tow: 2017 Honda PILOT EXL-AWD
prev. boats:
'87 Chaparral 198CXL 4.3 OMC Cobra
'69 Jetstar 16ft Ski Boat, 115hp Yamaha
'68 Aluminum Jon Boat, 3hp Sears
'64 Water Wings

I did have it well ocumented from when I was considering that 2006 boat, but I no longer have the exact details and I'm not going to spend hours getting the information together again. However; in the transition from IPS-A, B etc to IPS-F the following were changed for what I can only assume were valid reasons;

Upper gearbox
Servo steering
The lower gearbox
The clamp ring ( from Nibral to Stainless steel if I remember correctly)
The hull insert
The transmission oil cooler

There were other minor things like sensors as well.

Thank Graham
Sounds like some info came from YachtForums.com. As products evolve, changes are made to design and function to improve any deficiencies, and increase reliability.

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One of 4 Previous (Sold) Boats:
2000 Four Winns 268 Vista

Current Boat: 2004 Chaparral 235 ssi cuddy

Good luck with your offer, you picked a good one

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One of 4 Previous (Sold) Boats:
2000 Four Winns 268 Vista

Current Boat: 2004 Chaparral 235 ssi cuddy

Good luck on the offer. Looks nice.

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"Knot Easy" 2000 Horizon 240 Volvo 5.7GS /SX
tow: 2017 Honda PILOT EXL-AWD
prev. boats:
'87 Chaparral 198CXL 4.3 OMC Cobra
'69 Jetstar 16ft Ski Boat, 115hp Yamaha
'68 Aluminum Jon Boat, 3hp Sears
'64 Water Wings

I just got a bit nervous; a potential switch from a single gas engined outtdrive boat to a much bigger twin diesel one fitted with the first versions of drives that had evolved into improved versions since ! Visions of potential unexpected $$$$$ invoices flashed in my mind so I did a lot of digging! Maybe I was too cautious.

Deleted text , as it was a double post for some reason !

Thanks. Offer accepted and moving forward for a quick close. Now I just need to find a sureyorin Pensacola Fla...

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2007 Meridian 341
2008 SeaDoo Speedster 200 "Caliente"
1994 Larson Cabrio 280 "Liquid Asset"- Sold