Looking at purchasing a used boat soon. With the overall price of boats being pretty high I was thinking of going with an older direct drive/v drive rather than an i/o (have the perfect lake for water sports!). While I know that reliability will depend on how the boat was taken care of, does anyone have any advise on what constitutes 'high hours' on a boat? Does 500 hours likely mean looming high priced repair bills? These are near car motors - if I drive 60 mph, 500 hours would only amount to 30,000 miles - that's nothing...

I have always had an 2 stoke outboard and the think was bullet proof - can I expect the same from an inboard?

If anyone has any thoughts....