Re: Haters of 2-strokes

[Don]

Today’s younger technicians have had little exposure to conventional two strokes, fuel/direct injected or four strokes are the norm for them…
So, it understandable that they simply dismiss the older two strokes as "junk"….There is certainly room for us older techs with experience, the problem is being able to run a business and make money working on older two strokes. Generally speaking, folks aren’t willing to spend a lot of money repairing old outboards, so the tech/manager has to be a pretty good salesmen in order to convince owners that old outboards are worth the investment.
It pains me to know that OMC made our own bed, and eventually ended up laying in it. We could have learned so many valuable lessons watching the automakers get killed by the Japanese, but chose not to. Our next boneheaded move was to buy up boat companies to ensure our engines ended up on transoms, this just killed the boat companies and made our outboards the red headed step child. We lost control of our engines, they were all sitting in boat company plants. Many were damaged, improperly rigged, and essentially "used" before the actual owner got them.
Finally, the ficht direct injected engines were released to the market way before they were ready, which was the final nail in the coffin.
This is a sad story indeed, Ole and the Johnson brothers must be rolling over in their graves. It is my hope that future American industries can learn from these foolish mistakes and not repeat them.