I have not had either of my boats surveyed since 1996. On my powerboat the filters are not in the engine compartment, but I went with the Racor 500MA filters anyway because the price difference was trivial. For those of you who say just get a different surveyer, the price of a second survey is more than the cost of two new Racor 500MA filters. A person would have to be an idiot to go that route.