Nitro Z7 and Mercury 150 Fourstroke Review

Greetings! I have fished my Nitro Z 7 equipped with a Mercury 150 Fourstroke engine for about 7 months now and feel I have operated it long enough to give it an honest review. I am going to break it down into two parts, first my review of the Nitro Z 7 boat itself and then the 150 Mercury Fourstroke.

Before I start I want to mention that I usually operate the boat with a fuel level between half and full and 99% I have a passenger with me, my wife. Gear wise I have a pretty standard compliment of tackle boxes, 5 in all, in addition to a shovel, push pole, anchor, 10 gallon cooler, etc. Out rear compartments are primarily used for clothes storage and essentials. The forward compartments house the tackle, rods, shovel etc. We operate the boat exclusively on the lower Colorado River.

 
Nitro Z 7 Boat Review: Our first outings were in extremely hot weather vs. the normal hot weather. During the past summer we had never fished a day that wasn’t over 110 degrees, a few were even near 125 degrees. You spend a lot of time in the boat, so comfort is imperative, but it didn’t take long to find out that the Nitro Z 7 was not optimal for fishing in hot weather. I normally wear Hawaiian shirts and shorts while fishing and the very first time I knelt down on the deck I got burned by the lid latch, which was made of metal. The latches got so hot in the sun that they would actually burn your skin if you touched one, you cannot even open the lids without gloves. I did a little research on the manufacture and tracked down a company that sold an replacement locking latch that was made of nylon (pictured below), end of problem.

Replacement nylon lid latches for the Nitro Z 7

Fishing from the bow is great, the huge deck is spacious! The only thing I don’t like is that when you pull the trolling motor up the sheathed cables can hit the bows motor trim switch, forcing an unwanted trimming of the motor. I think a recessed set of switches would cure that problem.

Nitro also uses nonskid materials on select surfaces such as the metal boarding ladder. After the very first outing I noticed that all of the non-skid was missing, it still is because I am still looking into a better solution than something that relies on heat sensitive adhesive. I am leaning towards a slip on grip, something similar to what you would see on a bicycle handle.

While the decks are quite roomy, I can’t say that for the drivers compartment, it’s a little tight for 6’ tall guy, there is lack of leg room and the steering wheel feels like it extends to far out towards the seat, it’s apparent the moment you sit down with a standard vest on. In my 2013 Nitro Z 7 they have the key switch mounted in the outer hole of the console mounted plate, when you get up from the seat you have to be very mindful of where your leg is as its very easy to hit the key and bend or break it off. FYI I noticed that the 2014 model has the key relocated to the inside of the console, where it should have been in the first place.

2013 Nitro with key switch mounted on the outside

2014 Nitro with key switch mounted on the inside

It would have been nice if Nitro had added a built in clock to the instrument and bow panels, (a standard feature in cars which cost the same as this boat) the aftermarket “stick on” clocks cannot handle any heat or bouncing around and falloff in just a few hours. But the hydraulic steering is a nice feature, I can’t think of any situations where I had to deal with prop torque, ever.

The seating in the boat is comfortable, but the center seat is something that you need to consider removing as soon as you can. It’s very hard to step over and after the seat base has been stepped on a few times it will begin to tear at the seams. There is a solution offered by Nitro, but I strongly suggest that you go with the center seat exchange option at purchase. The pictured center step (no it does not open) offered by Nitro Boats will run you $411.69 + Tax yep, that highway robbery at every level. I won’t pay that and am looking into a different solution, one that will serve as a step/flat seat, as well as providing small item storage for items like the scale, phones, a hand gun etc.

Picture of the embroidered step sold by Nitro boats.

The company touts the boats trash can (which is nice but could be bigger) and the so called built in cooler, which is nothing short of useless as it has a very small capacity, it’s un-insulated and drains directly into the bilge. A much better use is to use it to store bags of frequently used soft baits. There is also a very large tackle storage area in the center of the deck, but it’s just not always feasible to try accessing it while fishing from the bow, as it only opens for access from the rear deck. Side storage is awesome, there is actually enough room in each one to fit an entire person inside.

The front deck could stand to have a built in yet small storage area, one that is easily accessible to the person operating the trolling motor. When your fishing current, especially under windy conditions, it would be nice to have an area to place items essential to that days pattern that you are working. Just throwing all of it on the deck doesn’t work well because you have to pick all of it up before you can get back on pad.

 

The live well system takes a little getting used to and my only complaints with the live well is the poorly designed drain plug system and that the live well divider is not removable, thus making the live wells less than accommodating for the larger fish. If operating the boat in hot weather you will want to consider adding ventilation to the live well lids. The live well water will start to steam and those water vapors will collect in the foam lid liner. Once the lids have been heated by the sun, softening the foams adhesive, and enough water has been absorbed, making the foam quite heavy, the foam will simply fall of into the live well water.

Mercury 150 Fourstroke Review: I had basically 2 options, a 150 fourstroke or a 150 two stroke. Having had a Mercury Black Max in my distant past, it didn’t take me long to decide on which engine to choose. I don’t do tournaments and hate filling oil reservoirs, so the Mercury 150 Fourstroke was right up my alley. The engine itself has been everything it was advertised to be, well except for a few things. If you are operating it on a hot day i.e. 90 degree water on a 120 degree day, the engine guardian system will kick in and only allow the engine to run at idle, that means if you are on a long run you either limp home at idle, or you completely shut down and hope it cools enough to get you back on pad for a while.  

While the fuel injected engine starts fast and doesn't ever smoke, the engine isn't as "quiet" as they would like you to believe, because at 4500 RPM its very difficult to hear the warning buzzer, especially with the wind blowing across your ears. A dash mounted warning light would be way superior.

There is also a built in feature that limits the amount of trim you can apply when on pad, it appears to have a module that is set in such a way that no matter how much you trim up from the seat, it will always stop at the exact same position. Trimmed up all the way it will throw an optimal rooster tail, but you don’t receive all of the top end speed the engine could deliver, and those of us that run sand bar laden waters don’t have the ability to do short term over trims when we need them the most. Having a strong mechanical background, I honestly don’t think that trimming up a few more degrees for the 15 – 30 seconds it takes to blow across a sand bar is going to harm anything.

Water speed with a Mercury 150 Fourstroke is probably 8 - 10 MPH slower than most of the two strokes, according to our GPS we can eventually achieve 46- 47.5 MPH, that is on a good day, empty livewell, 1/3 tank of fuel, no cooler, and with the stock 23 pitch prop. Note that if the engine didn’t have a trim limiter interfering, you might be able to squeeze a few more out of it.

I have since swapped out the 23 pitch for a 21 pitch and increased the top end to around 54 SOG with the same load.

Engine service is a snap, you can do all it yourself in under an hour. Outside of changing the oil once a year there really isn't much in the line maintenance.

While I left out the little stuff, like the onboard batter charger only lasting 3 months, glove box hard to open, etc. I hope that this post gave you some additional insight on this package. Overall I would buy another Nitro boat but I think I would up my demands and expectations a bit.

Happy fishing!

2013 Nitro Z-7 Bass Boat with 150 Mercury Fourstroke Delivery Issues

Greetings,
as I mentioned in my last post, the intent of my first couple of posts was to offer a real review of a Nitro Z-7 with a 150 Mercury Fourstroke. I had originally hoped that I could knock that out in a single post, but due to all of the problems I had at delivery, the actual review will probably have to wait until my next post.

Rather than having to re-write everything, I am just going to post the main emails I sent to my Nitro rep.

Delivery of our 2013 Nitro Z-7 with a 150 Mercury Fourstroke

Email to Nitro Boats:

"Hope you are having a wonderful day. First off I want you to know that I am not emailing you because I want something from you. My intent is just to inform you of a few things that could be maybe improved on.  

When I picked up the boat it was inside, but the seats and other misc. items were sitting in different locations in the bay, on a tool box etc. Visually it made us feel like they were not done prepping the boat. My expectation of a prepped boat are more in-line with a turnkey scenario, seats are all installed, lanyard in the kill switch, old packaging and wire ties cleared off deck, etc. 

As previously mentioned there was the obvious bubble in the carpet, it was maybe 2 inches across. I pointed it out to the kid and he said “wow, I don’t know how I missed that”. I am going to keep an eye on that for a bit because after a few hours in the hot sun I put some pressure/weight on that spot, hoping that it will re-bond with the glue. So far so good but time will tell. 

At the shop, Peggy mentioned that she felt something was wrong with the console decals that said Nitro and Z7. Sure enough we figured out that the Nitro portion, which is affixed to the windscreen, was installed on the port side of the boat (which was corrected by swapping them around). Again a minor thing, but my wife didn’t need to be the one that caught that. 

Then we get home with the boat and I decided to toss some things in the boat, there was a plastic bag that had misc. nuts and parts in it, some of which were the rubber rod holders that belong on the deck. My first impression was that you gave us a few extras and I could keep them in case one breaks. But after inspecting the boat I quickly realized that they were never installed in the first place. My son bought some screws and  installed them for me so I could use them next weekend, but again another stupid thing that was overlooked. 

I hope you understand that my perceived value is kind of low now, largely because I am wondering what else was missed and will have to spend additional personal time going over the boat. Hopefully my shakedown cruise next weekend will go well and restore my confidence in the boat little."

 

Then in a second follow-up email:

 

" In regards to the boat, I have fished it for about 8 full days now and in addition to my previous feedback, here is some more. 

After our first outing the transducer cable became damaged (see attached picture) because it was routed in such a way that allowed it to be sandwiched between the mount and the trolling motor, thus damaging the cord which now needs to be replaced. I believe this happened our first time out and Peggy and I didn’t realize that there is a specific way that the motor must be pointed when you raised it to prevent the cord from being sandwiched between the motor and the front of the mount when you raise the motor. During the raising, there is a point where the motor hits/slides across the trolling motor mount. I have a lowrance mark-5x on the bow, but I do not see it on your website, is there a way I can order a replacement cable/transducer. I will install it so it does not bub against anything when you pull the motor up. 
 

The textured surface on the boarding ladder fell off on the very first use (see picture). My guess is that the adhesive is not designed to withstand being in the sun. I don’t know of a solution for this yet. 
 

We were told that we should purchase the retractable tie downs, which we did. But we could not initially unload the boat because the transducer is mounted directly in front of the tie down, (which was were bolted tight, in a upright position) and the transducer would have been ripped off by the tie down which is positioned directly behind it (see attached picture). As a short term fix, I had to loosened them up so they hung down freely when released. But because they hang low under the trailer frame they pretty much fill up with river muck and sand. One retractor is already malfunctioning and not retracting so I am going to throw both of them away and get what I originally wanted which were normal tie downs, something like your pro series transom tie-downs. 
 

The rear seat. The stitching is already coming apart and the sewing on this particular piece is atrocious (see pictures) but there is a larger problem. The foam padding is wrapped with a plastic and when you sit on the seat it basically sounds like a whoopee cushion when the air tries to find a way out.  Whoever made the seats didn’t think out the design very well, I know my wife was not thrilled about it. How do we resolve this? 
 

While I realize there is little we can do about it now, I do have to say that the overall gel coat finish on the boat is poor, it seems that the gel coat is super thin making the boat is super prone to scratches from the slightest of things. My Champion never had this problem, heck you could troll through heavy brush and never even see a scratch. With this Nitro finish all you need to do is run a piece of reed or bamboo across the finish and you will actually see the reinforced composite material. SO my question here is this. Does Nitro offer any touch up bottle / paint stick like you can get from a car dealer?"

 

 As you can see my 2013 Nitro Z-7 Bass Boat with a 150 Mercury Fourstroke was off to a very rocky start, but I kept my fingers crossed that Nitro would do the right thing. One big obstacle both parties have is the distance from a service center. My boat is in Yuma AZ and there are no service centers for 100s and 100s of miles. While I would have preferred to drop it off for repairs, the lesser of the evils was to accept a box full of replacement parts and do it myself.

 

It took me many weeks to complete but I have managed to address all of the issues with the supplied parts. All that's left is the year end service, which I will perform with the provided filter (they didn't give me oil).

 

At this point I am going say that the delivery issues have been satisfactorily addressed and will begin the review process in my next post.

 

So lets wrap thing up with a fish picture. P.S. While I normally wear Hawaiian shirts from Wave Shoppe while bass fishing, it's been so hot that t-shirts are the only garment that seemingly provides me with any comfort in the 110 + Arizona heat.

 

But give me a little credit for sneaking in the Hawaiian print swim shorts.

 

Remember, release so you can catch another day!