15 HP 4 stroke 03 History of bad rods

[JanS48]

Greetings all.
Does anyone know if these motors have a history of rods going bad?
I have a 2003 that has a knocking noise when it first starts and then shuts up.
I ran it last season that way and it never seemed to get worse.

Has anyone else seen or heard of this condition?

Thanks
Jan

[Kongfish]

Not sure if it does or not but, I've seen 5 or 6 posts on here that are answering that same question on several different models of mercury 4 strokes of various HP if that helps you any.