Minn Kota Terrova Review

[bassguytom]

After about 4 months of use I wanted to post a review for anyone thinking about getting one of these. The electric steer takes some getting used to but after a few outings you have it down the footpedal buttons are kind of small but I have learned to adjust to that. Some people say they use the remote exclusively but I find using a combination of the foot pedal and remote works best for me. I have recorded tracks and played them back and it follows the track very well. The spot lock feature was the reason I got this trolling motor and it works very well. I have read the GPS accuracy is not that good and won't keep you tight to a spot. I always throw a marker on the spot I want to fish and set the spot lock up wind from it. If you face the boat into the wind and hit the spot lock as the boat stops its forward progress the spot lock works well. So after 4 months of use my initial thoughts are if it broke tomorrow I would go out and buy another one. This by far has been the most helpful piece of electronics I have bought for the boat. It has put more fish in the boat then anything else I have including side and down scan. Next review will be with the ilink to my hummingbird electronics. Hope this helps someone.

[Further North]

I thnk you've got it exactly right.

 

Once I learned that I didn't want to use the Terrova the same way I'd used my cable steer trolling motors and dumped all that baggage, I found that I didn't need to...by letting the Terrova do the work while I fish, it really makes my time in the boat a lot more effective.

 

About three weeks ago, I was working some docks off a steep drop off and I started showing a lot of fish in one spot, I set a quick waypoint, finished up the docks in the area, then pointed the Terrova in the general direction of the marked spot and hit "GO TO".  When I got there, I hot Spot Lock and picked up a half dozen smallies in about 20 minutes.

[Allen Der]

i like mine when it works.  in the less than 1 year I've owned it, it's had a defective foot pedal and now it's back in the shop again, probably a bad control board.  I'm tempted to just sell it once I get it fixed

[Further North]

Interesting...I've had mine for 5 years, had it mounted on 3 different boats and have never had a problem I didn't cause.  I've bent the shaft running it into shallow rocks twice, one time bad enough that the seal on the shaft leaked and ruined the motor itself.

 

Both times fixed under warranty in just a couple days.

 

For perspective, I fish upwards of 60 days a year and run the motor almost all the time when I fish.

[tomustang]

If it broke tomorrow, grab an ulterra. Worth the upgrade.

[Dwight Hottle]

I recently converted my 60" 24volt terrova copilot to a 72" I-pilot. I needed a longer shaft for lake erie waves & wanted the spot lock feature & gps capabilites. I have been very pleased with the transformaton. This is my second terrova unit (two different boats) and I have never had a problem with them. I have always used the electronic remote never the foot pedal. 

[desmobob]

This by far has been the most helpful piece of electronics I have bought for the boat. It has put more fish in the boat then anything else I have including side and down scan. 

 

That's a powerful statement.  I'm thinking about upgrading my trolling motor next season and I like the features of the Terrova, but it won't work in coordination with my Garmin 93SV chart plotter/sonar.  I wonder if anyone makes a trolling motor with an NMEA connection that can be guided by a Garmin unit...

 

Tight lines,

Bob

[Slade House]

Why i love my motorguide XI5 way more than the terrova. 

SpotLock 

Motor guide = as little movement and steering as possible, never overcorrects.  Also i can move my spot lock 5 feet in any direction by hitting the arrow button , very very useful 

Minn kota =  overcorrects constanlty , when you hit spot lock it swings you wildly in the opposite direction.  

 

Noise 

Motorguide = Silent when it turns 

Minn Kota = so loud that you can hear it a mile away  , whirrrrrrr.. whiirrrrr

 

Turning speed 

motorguide - quick 

minn kota - turtle 

 

Foot pedal

Minn Kota - useless, the speed adjust dial is also very useless and impossible to adjust with your foot

motorguide- spring activated real feel pedal with great 

 

 

I am reposting this from a topic a year ago .below 

 

 So for the past year I've been running a 80lb terrova  iPilot trolling motor on my 2005 bass tracker pro team 175.  Ive probably used it about 5 times a week for the past year.  I have had more problems and issues with it than i can't count (at least one a week). 

·       The motor that steers the terrova makes so much noise that you cringe every time the motor turns.   I know for a fact that the noise from that has spooked the fish.  Its loud, really loud.  The worst thing is that at iCast 2014, Minn Kota had their new version of the same motor the "Ulterra"  that had some cool features : automatic store and deploy , spot lock on the foot pedal, etc.  BUT the d**n thing still made so much noise.  I played with the thing for a long time and even the engineer made a comment that in their board room executives were commenting on the noise.    so it doesn't look like they're going to fix the problem anytime soon.  Sometimes I think people are in denial that they spent a good chunk of money on a product with poor product quality that might actually be hurting their chances catching fish. 

·       For it to shut off when you stow it , there are 2 little magnets (tiny ones) that need to be aligned on the side of the handle release  , otherwise it stays powered on. within like 4 months I couldn't get the magnets aligned so i would have to push the handle releasein just a little bit, or i would really have to pull hard against the arm release to get the thing to power off . well that must have weakened something else, because then  i had the metal bolt break that connects the arm release to the side plate and when i was pulling my boat out of the water onto my trailer  the entire shaft fell forward and deployed , dropping like a rock (cause its so d**n heavy) and  In the process breaking a chunk of plastic off both the depth collar and the motor cradle

·      

·       then there have been the ghosts in the machine i call them.  The  one day the thing just randomly started turning left and kept spinning left over and over again for now reason.  i had to cut the wires to the battery just to get it to stop before it destoryed itself.  randomly jumping to full speed when its on spot lock for no reason.

·       The spot lock does an ok job , its less of a spot lock and will  swing way too hard in this direction, so you then swing back hard in the opposite direction , then back the other way.  really only when their is a good steady wind does it work good. if the wind is variable or its dead calm it sucks.  

·       for 35% o the time ive had it The Ipilot remote itself does this thing where it will just turn off (even with new batteries) and to get it to turn back on I have to bang it against my leg 7 times or i have to rotate the batteries in it. This is really awesome when you turn the propellor on and then 20 seconds later you can't turn it off with the remote and you have turn it off on the foot pedal or bang the remote till it turns back on. It will do this 20 times a day or more.  (it did it again today) 

·       Do you need to put a transducer on your trolling motor ? forget about it, you can , but the problems you will incur are so frustrating that you might just blow a fuse yourself. The speaker for my hydrowave mounted on it became a daily chore of having to resplice it every day

·        So now i have a trolling motor that i have to manually disconnect it from the battery if i want to power it off at the end of the day, the depth collar and motor cradle are cracked so the shaft and motor and the electric housing don't lock fully together (there is about 1 inch the electric motor will go before the d**n thing will actually turn. when i want to stow it , i have such a long process of getting the thing up and out of the water that its maddening.

 

Out of all the things that really sizzles my bacon the most  , it’s the remote constantly having issues staying on.  So many times that’s caused extreme headaches for me.  But the noise made when that thing turns just sucks , period, there is no denying it.

[Further North]

That's a powerful statement.  I'm thinking about upgrading my trolling motor next season and I like the features of the Terrova, but it won't work in coordination with my Garmin 93SV chart plotter/sonar.  I wonder if anyone makes a trolling motor with an NMEA connection that can be guided by a Garmin unit...

 

Tight lines,

Bob

It is a powerful statement...and I agree with it 100%.

 

The Terrova has changed how I fish and the how much time I spend fishing when I am out more than any other piece of equipment I have installed on my boat.

 

If you don't try to force it into the paradigm of a cable steer motor, it will change how you fish...for the better.

[Further North]

 

Why i love my motorguide XI5 way more than the terrova. 

SpotLock 

Motor guide = as little movement and steering as possible, never overcorrects.  Also i can move my spot lock 5 feet in any direction by hitting the arrow button , very very useful 

Minn kota =  overcorrects constanlty , when you hit spot lock it swings you wildly in the opposite direction.  

 

Noise 

Motorguide = Silent when it turns 

Minn Kota = so loud that you can hear it a mile away  , whirrrrrrr.. whiirrrrr

 

Turning speed 

motorguide - quick 

minn kota - turtle 

 

Foot pedal

Minn Kota - useless, the speed adjust dial is also very useless and impossible to adjust with your foot

motorguide- spring activated real feel pedal with great

I haven't tried the MotorGuide...I'm sure it's a great product and works well...

 

...but let's not pretend it's anything other than a "me too!" copy of the Terrova with some (needed) improvements....

 

...as to all the issues you have had...Wow...what did MinnKota say/do when you reported the issues to them?

 

I have had nothing but excellent service from them...

[Scott F]

 

Why i love my motorguide XI5 way more than the terrova. 

SpotLock 

Motor guide = as little movement and steering as possible, never overcorrects.  Also i can move my spot lock 5 feet in any direction by hitting the arrow button , very very useful 

Minn kota =  overcorrects constanlty , when you hit spot lock it swings you wildly in the opposite direction.  

 

Noise 

Motorguide = Silent when it turns 

Minn Kota = so loud that you can hear it a mile away  , whirrrrrrr.. whiirrrrr

 

Turning speed 

motorguide - quick 

minn kota - turtle 

 

Foot pedal

Minn Kota - useless, the speed adjust dial is also very useless and impossible to adjust with your foot

motorguide- spring activated real feel pedal with great 

 

 

I am reposting this from a topic a year ago .below 

 

 So for the past year I've been running a 80lb terrova  iPilot trolling motor on my 2005 bass tracker pro team 175.  Ive probably used it about 5 times a week for the past year.  I have had more problems and issues with it than i can't count (at least one a week). 

·       The motor that steers the terrova makes so much noise that you cringe every time the motor turns.   I know for a fact that the noise from that has spooked the fish.  Its loud, really loud.  The worst thing is that at iCast 2014, Minn Kota had their new version of the same motor the "Ulterra"  that had some cool features : automatic store and deploy , spot lock on the foot pedal, etc.  BUT the d**n thing still made so much noise.  I played with the thing for a long time and even the engineer made a comment that in their board room executives were commenting on the noise.    so it doesn't look like they're going to fix the problem anytime soon.  Sometimes I think people are in denial that they spent a good chunk of money on a product with poor product quality that might actually be hurting their chances catching fish. 

·       For it to shut off when you stow it , there are 2 little magnets (tiny ones) that need to be aligned on the side of the handle release  , otherwise it stays powered on. within like 4 months I couldn't get the magnets aligned so i would have to push the handle releasein just a little bit, or i would really have to pull hard against the arm release to get the thing to power off . well that must have weakened something else, because then  i had the metal bolt break that connects the arm release to the side plate and when i was pulling my boat out of the water onto my trailer  the entire shaft fell forward and deployed , dropping like a rock (cause its so d**n heavy) and  In the process breaking a chunk of plastic off both the depth collar and the motor cradle

·      

·       then there have been the ghosts in the machine i call them.  The  one day the thing just randomly started turning left and kept spinning left over and over again for now reason.  i had to cut the wires to the battery just to get it to stop before it destoryed itself.  randomly jumping to full speed when its on spot lock for no reason.

·       The spot lock does an ok job , its less of a spot lock and will  swing way too hard in this direction, so you then swing back hard in the opposite direction , then back the other way.  really only when their is a good steady wind does it work good. if the wind is variable or its dead calm it sucks.  

·       for 35% o the time ive had it The Ipilot remote itself does this thing where it will just turn off (even with new batteries) and to get it to turn back on I have to bang it against my leg 7 times or i have to rotate the batteries in it. This is really awesome when you turn the propellor on and then 20 seconds later you can't turn it off with the remote and you have turn it off on the foot pedal or bang the remote till it turns back on. It will do this 20 times a day or more.  (it did it again today) 

·       Do you need to put a transducer on your trolling motor ? forget about it, you can , but the problems you will incur are so frustrating that you might just blow a fuse yourself. The speaker for my hydrowave mounted on it became a daily chore of having to resplice it every day

·        So now i have a trolling motor that i have to manually disconnect it from the battery if i want to power it off at the end of the day, the depth collar and motor cradle are cracked so the shaft and motor and the electric housing don't lock fully together (there is about 1 inch the electric motor will go before the d**n thing will actually turn. when i want to stow it , i have such a long process of getting the thing up and out of the water that its maddening.

 

Out of all the things that really sizzles my bacon the most  , it’s the remote constantly having issues staying on.  So many times that’s caused extreme headaches for me.  But the noise made when that thing turns just sucks , period, there is no denying it.

 

 

I've had my Terrova for a year and have had none of the problems you've had. If I did, I'm sure I'd be unhappy too. I upgraded from a Power Drive model and noticed a big improvement on the speed that it turns from the old motor. The turning motor isn't silent, but I never noticed it being loud either. My only complaint with the Terrova is that I use my toe to operate the foot pedal and it's easy to hit one of the turn buttons while trying to use the monentary button. I put a rubber piece on the switch to make it a little taller so I can hit it without turning the motor left or right. I seldom use the remote as I need two hands to fish. I love the low profile foot pedal. I think it's ridiculous to have to put a hole in the deck of a boat to accommodate those huge, tall pedals on a cable steer motor. I switched to electric steer just because of the poorly designed pedals.

I've never seen a MotorGuide X15 in operation. I never met anyone who owned one. I'm sure they are perfect and will never break. Glad you are happy with your purchase.

[Allen Der]

 

Why i love my motorguide XI5 way more than the terrova. 

SpotLock 

Motor guide = as little movement and steering as possible, never overcorrects.  Also i can move my spot lock 5 feet in any direction by hitting the arrow button , very very useful 

Minn kota =  overcorrects constanlty , when you hit spot lock it swings you wildly in the opposite direction.  

 

Noise 

Motorguide = Silent when it turns 

Minn Kota = so loud that you can hear it a mile away  , whirrrrrrr.. whiirrrrr

 

Turning speed 

motorguide - quick 

minn kota - turtle 

 

Foot pedal

Minn Kota - useless, the speed adjust dial is also very useless and impossible to adjust with your foot

motorguide- spring activated real feel pedal with great 

 

 

I am reposting this from a topic a year ago .below 

 

 So for the past year I've been running a 80lb terrova  iPilot trolling motor on my 2005 bass tracker pro team 175.  Ive probably used it about 5 times a week for the past year.  I have had more problems and issues with it than i can't count (at least one a week). 

·       The motor that steers the terrova makes so much noise that you cringe every time the motor turns.   I know for a fact that the noise from that has spooked the fish.  Its loud, really loud.  The worst thing is that at iCast 2014, Minn Kota had their new version of the same motor the "Ulterra"  that had some cool features : automatic store and deploy , spot lock on the foot pedal, etc.  BUT the d**n thing still made so much noise.  I played with the thing for a long time and even the engineer made a comment that in their board room executives were commenting on the noise.    so it doesn't look like they're going to fix the problem anytime soon.  Sometimes I think people are in denial that they spent a good chunk of money on a product with poor product quality that might actually be hurting their chances catching fish. 

·       For it to shut off when you stow it , there are 2 little magnets (tiny ones) that need to be aligned on the side of the handle release  , otherwise it stays powered on. within like 4 months I couldn't get the magnets aligned so i would have to push the handle releasein just a little bit, or i would really have to pull hard against the arm release to get the thing to power off . well that must have weakened something else, because then  i had the metal bolt break that connects the arm release to the side plate and when i was pulling my boat out of the water onto my trailer  the entire shaft fell forward and deployed , dropping like a rock (cause its so d**n heavy) and  In the process breaking a chunk of plastic off both the depth collar and the motor cradle

·      

·       then there have been the ghosts in the machine i call them.  The  one day the thing just randomly started turning left and kept spinning left over and over again for now reason.  i had to cut the wires to the battery just to get it to stop before it destoryed itself.  randomly jumping to full speed when its on spot lock for no reason.

·       The spot lock does an ok job , its less of a spot lock and will  swing way too hard in this direction, so you then swing back hard in the opposite direction , then back the other way.  really only when their is a good steady wind does it work good. if the wind is variable or its dead calm it sucks.  

·       for 35% o the time ive had it The Ipilot remote itself does this thing where it will just turn off (even with new batteries) and to get it to turn back on I have to bang it against my leg 7 times or i have to rotate the batteries in it. This is really awesome when you turn the propellor on and then 20 seconds later you can't turn it off with the remote and you have turn it off on the foot pedal or bang the remote till it turns back on. It will do this 20 times a day or more.  (it did it again today) 

·       Do you need to put a transducer on your trolling motor ? forget about it, you can , but the problems you will incur are so frustrating that you might just blow a fuse yourself. The speaker for my hydrowave mounted on it became a daily chore of having to resplice it every day

·        So now i have a trolling motor that i have to manually disconnect it from the battery if i want to power it off at the end of the day, the depth collar and motor cradle are cracked so the shaft and motor and the electric housing don't lock fully together (there is about 1 inch the electric motor will go before the d**n thing will actually turn. when i want to stow it , i have such a long process of getting the thing up and out of the water that its maddening.

 

Out of all the things that really sizzles my bacon the most  , it’s the remote constantly having issues staying on.  So many times that’s caused extreme headaches for me.  But the noise made when that thing turns just sucks , period, there is no denying it.

 

 

does the xi5 have a feature equivalent to minnkota's autopilot?

[tomustang]

Way to litter a thread, quoting it makes it worse too.

[dcreign]

Is this useful on almost anyboat? Who has it mouneed on a bass boat like a skeeter or ranger?

[Further North]

I have mine mounted on  Crestliner CMV, Crestliner's version of a bass boat from the mid-2000s (it virtually the same boat as the new Lund Pro-V Bass, just 10 years older).

 

It works great.

 

The key to using a Terrova is to not use it like a cable steer motor.  Terrovas are about setting a direction and letting the motor do the work for you, not about constant adjustments and corrections and being on the pedal all day.

 

If you need/want to be on the pedal constantly, a Terrova is not for you.  If you'd rather let the trolling motor handle boat control and fish...and are willing to learn to do things differently...you'll spend more time with the lure in the water.

 

The Terrova is only noisy if you make a lot of corrections to your direction...something you don't have to do if you learn how to use it.

 

I'm sure the Motor Guide achieves the same things...but it's still a late to the party copy...which is fine...

[Scott F]

If you need/want to be on the pedal constantly, a Terrova is not for you.  

 

I don't understand this. I'm on my Terrova pedal a lot and it works fine for me. Why do you think it wouldn't be for someone who works the pedal a lot?  As I said in an earlier post, cable steer pedals are so tall, I hate to use them. The low profile pedal for me is made for constant use.

[Way2slow]

I've had the Terrova 80US I-Pilot about three years,  I used it with the foot control instead of the remote because who wants to stop fishing and fiddle with a remote every time you need to do something with the TM.  When the foot pedal went out this summer, I finally took the Terrova off and put my MotorGuide back on I took of for the Terrova.  Never was fond on the Terrova's foot pedal control, and hated the having to raise and deploy the thing going to shallow banks to get lures. 

 

While I've have been using my MG for a few months now, I have realized there were some features I liked about the Terrova over the MG, but the foot pedal and deploying it are not two of those features and those two alone are enough for me leave the Terrova off my boat. 

[Further North]

I don't understand this. I'm on my Terrova pedal a lot and it works fine for me. Why do you think it wouldn't be for someone who works the pedal a lot?  As I said in an earlier post, cable steer pedals are so tall, I hate to use them. The low profile pedal for me is made for constant use.

I use the Terrova as a "set it and forget it" tool most of the the time...but I was referring more to the folks who are on their trolling motors pretty much constantly.  I've fished with a lot of guys who are adjusting direction, speed, nudging it this way and that...and it works for them, which is great.

 

You know how the Terrove is when you point it down lake and it stays that way?  Cable steer can't do that...if you leave a cable steer trolling motor on at any given angle...the boat will go in circles if you don't correct it...so it needs a lot of attention.  A Terrova does not need that.

[Long Mike]

Lots of useful commentary here, both pro and con.  I have a Terrova, that for the first year I used exclusively with the remote.  I learned that the remote, used in conjunction with the foot pedal, works even better.  The spot lock function with the remote is a given.  So is the set-it-and forget-it function.  That's when I switch to the foot pedal.  All I have to do is tap the foot pedal and it adjusts it's course, and holds it.  There are a number of features on the Terrova that are available that I have not yet begun to explore.  I'm so pleased with the features that I do have, that going back to cable-steer is out of the question.

[Further North]

I have a Terrova, that for the first year I used exclusively with the remote.  I learned that the remote, used in conjunction with the foot pedal, works even better.

I did almost exactly the same...it was nice not having the foot pedal on the deck...but once I got used to using both it would be hard to go back.

 

One feature of the Ultera that I am looking forward to it the foot pedal mounted spot lock button.