Tell me about your SEI experience

I'll come from the other side unfortunately. We have two SEI lowers. One blew up at 65 hours about tww years old, throwing the pinion gear and spewing lube into lake Ontario. It was replaced under warranty and I can't speak badly of the service department as they sent a replacement rather quickly. I put 15 hours on that new unit to finish last season. This offseason I've had to replace the shift shaft bushing and vertical shaft oil seal on the "new" one, and the shift shaft bushing on the other unit (80 hours runtime on that one)

I tried using SEI bushings, they both leaked. Replaced with OEM, no leaks. Fingers crossed we don't have any more issues this year but I've not had a great experience so far. My next boat will be inboards.

I owned two SEI drives hooked up to twin mercruiser 165's before I converted my Sea Ray to an outboard boat. In short, my opinion is they're decent outdrives with a great warranty. I wouldn't label them awesome, just good.

I purchased both new. I had one get very noisy in its second year of service with silver flakes in the oil. It finished the season out though, which surprised me for how noisy it had become. I sent it to SEI after our season was over and they sent it back within a few weeks with everything in the upper and lower units replaced except for the casing itself. My only expense was shipping. The other unit ran strong for 3 full seasons without issue.

My only complaint was the paint was terrible. They didn't look good for very long, and I had to repaint both within a season. They stood behind the warranty just as stated.....no questions asked. I'd purchase from them again, with the thought in mind I'll likely get 4-5 years out of it, but I troll a lot and use my stuff hard.

I installed an SEI upper on my old boat in 2010. Still working fine. Paint held up pretty good but it was a trailered boat.

I then put a pair on my 300 last spring. I have probably 75 hours on them, mixed use, with no problems. There are some areas of isolated corrosion I noticed when I pulled them off for service last week, but no biggie.

When faced with the option to rebuild a corroded up and worn out 30 year old Merc unit, or get a new one, it seemed like a no brainer to me.

Thanks for all the replies! It seems like a lot of people use their parts with mixed feelings about it. Worse paint and corrosion than OEM. I'm just looking at a set of trim cylinders for a bravo3. I suspect a big difference may be between those that use their units in salt versus fresh. Mine is in salt. Hmmm.

Whoops, wrong thread! Well good info though!

I put an SEI lower unit on an Alpha 1 in 2009, sold the boat to a friend soon thereafter and it’s still going strong and he’s put hundreds of hours on it.

It was and still is a little whiney though, but the gear oil always looks good during changes.

The paint does stink, but it’s a small price to pay.

I have an SEI counter rotating lower on port drive and an upper on the starboard. I like them, no paint issues, but I'm in salt water and put AT paint on every year. The upper is a bit louder than the need but no issues and no excess metal or bits in oil at year end.