deadbeef - 11/29/2017 11:33 AM

Since Ulterra keeps coming up I think this is worth mentioning. This spring my Ulterra would not stow correctly on the water. The manual stow procedure isn't terribly difficult, but if the waster was rough I could see it being a bit daunting. Basically involves taking some screws out and securing the motor with a Velcro strap. I had already tried to troubleshoot mine on the water. I called Minn Kota support when I got home and described the issues. The support engineer said there were some magnets that could fall off which caused the head to lose it's orientation, which was likely what I was experiencing. On disassembly there was a magnet that had fallen off that was attracted to one of the nuts. The support engineer said in early models these were glued, but later models there is a bracket for them. Mine was an early model. It was 2 years and a day past when the unit was delivered, but lucky for me Minn Kota still serviced it for no charge. I still had to drive an hour each way to drop it off and pick it up. I was also lucky to have a V1 PowerDrive I could throw on while the Ulterra was in the shop.

That's the only big issue I've had with the Ulterra, although a couple times it has cost me time to go through reset procedures on the water. Its also helped me put some nice fish in the boat that maybe I would not have if I was fighting to stay on location.

I do love my Ulterra when its working and would never buy a trolling motor without spot lock in the future, but I'm not sure the stow and deploy is worth the hassle. If I had to do it over again, Ultrex with iPilot Link hands down.