We had a Beta BV 1903 with 3,500 hours recorded when we bought the boat in 2004 at 11 years old.
By January 2018 we had a new Beta 43 fitted as the old engine, which by then had over 17,000 hours, had become smokey and needed to be stripped down and reconditioned.
Finding someone to strip down the engine and do whatever work was needed would have taken many weeks (a friends took three months to be completed) and at a cost which would be impossible to accurately estimate (the friend's ultimately cost £3,400) depending what was found.
Once done several months and who knows what cost later, we'd still have an old but reconditioned engine.
We elected to have a new Beta 43 fitted which cost around £7,000 fitted, and took two days.
The engine now has over 4,000 hours and is performing as new.
Rog