I have an Ulterra trolling motor on my now 8 year old boat. Have never had a problem. Several friends of mine have had multiple breakdowns and expensive repair bills on their Ulterras this season. I don’t like problems on the water and am considering replacing my Ulterra with a new Terrova manual deploy troller. Your thoughts? Am I over reacting?
Bartman,
If it has been working for 8 years and you have kept up on maintenance it seems like your good. I have an Ulterra from 2016 and it is still working fine.
Yes..
My ulterra could fail once a year and I still wouldn’t trade it for a terrova…both ulterras I’ve owned have ended up having the same solder joint break inside the trim motor. Fortunately I was able to fix it myself mid trip, but even if I hadn’t the inconvenience of not having a trolling motor for a short period would outweigh not having auto-stow/deploy
There’s a lot more moving parts in an Ulterra versus a Terrova. So by nature, there’s more that can go wrong.
On a side note….One guy has two Unterras… when one breaks he swaps it out for the other. Now that’s product loyalty
I think you should switch, I have an 8 year old Terrova and I’ll help you out and trade with you.
I had nothing but problems with my ulterra for years. This year I switched to a Garmin Kraken. The first Kraken had issues with the main board I think. I trouble shot for 2 months sending videos when Garmin finally sent a new one to me. That one has been very good. A few learning issues on my part since running Minnkota’s for 20+ years. I do miss the auto deploy on windy days though. I hope the new Ulterra quest turns out better than the first and second generations.
We had an ulterra and switched to a Terrova. Only problem we had ulterra was when the plug started going bad, so no fault of the motor. We also had it freeze up one time and wouldn’t deploy.
Do not miss the chance it might not work. But also miss the auto deploy and stow. Although the auto trim feature might be what I miss the most.
A guy in Canada this year had to rope his ulterra after manually stowing. That wasn’t fun for him or anyone else as we tried to help him get it fixed.
I would stay with the Ulterra. I’m on the 5th season with mine, new in 2020. I had one issue that year where it got stuck when stowing. Did the reset procedure and has been fine since. Fish alone a lot and absolutely love not having to go up to the front, especially when it’s windy. If it gets stuck again and I can’t fix it, I’ll take it off the boat via the removable mount and use the 36-volt Vantage.
You have been lucky. FYI remember with the slider mount you can’t have the bolt in the back that won’t let the motor slide off the front. I found that out the first time mine stuck deployed. Once I got it off taking the motor apart I pulled the bolt out so the next time I could just pull the motor off the front. I put a small lock on the release plate in case the screw that holds the motor in the middle of the slider plate were to vibrate out to keep from losing the motor into the lake.
I would stay with the Ulterra. I’m on the 5th season with mine, new in 2020. I had one issue that year where it got stuck when stowing. Did the reset procedure and has been fine since. Fish alone a lot and absolutely love not having to go up to the front, especially when it’s windy. If it gets stuck again and I can’t fix it, I’ll take it off the boat via the removable mount and use the 36-volt Vantage.
I never understood why people fix things that aren’t broken.
Nobody likes problems on the water but you start hunting for them when you replace reliable stuff.
I got the spendier mount that was recommended for the 36-volt motor with 72″ shaft because it can put so much pressure on the mount. Pull the pins out and lift it straight up out of the mount.
Third year on my ulterra with no major issues , got stuck on stow mode once but was on easy reset . Like the old saying goes , if it aint broke don’t fix it
I got the spendier mount that was recommended for the 36-volt motor with 72″ shaft because it can put so much pressure on the mount. Pull the pins out and lift it straight up out of the mount.
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