Buying new troller, graph integration is not that important to me. From those with knowledge of either or both, which one? Pro’s and Cons?

I just finished doing my research on the same two. Garmin sounds like they’re having lots of issues (like 50% come back). Lowrance was where I was leaning, but after talking with a customer service rep, and his answers (or lack of) to my questions, I bought a motorguide tour pro. I really wanted to go with the Garmin and love some of its features, but they need to fix their problems before I buy one.

Was the MG Rep able to answer your questions?

Have you used the motor yet and if yes, how is it? Is the remote good?

Im leery of the Garmin foot pedal.

I've had a Garmin Force since they first came out. Every issue I had was fixed via software updates except the sensitive steering which I think was fixed with both a software update and a manual adjustment. I've never been close to returning it and quite frankly haven't heard of anyone else I know that owns one returning theirs. I can't speak to the Ghost but can tell you this Force is without question the best trolling motor I have ever seen.

The only thing the motorguide rep said that I didn’t like was that the reason they delayed the release over a year was due to design problems. At least he was honest about it I guess. I had a little trouble getting it to calibrate to the gps, but I was the cause of that. I called customer service and the lady walked me through it in 5 minutes. It’s working perfect now. It doesn’t seem to be as fast as my old 24v tour was, but it’s much quieter. If it’s below 6 I can’t hear it at all other that a slight whirring sound when you turn fast. I’ve only had it on the water once. I’m going to Rayburn next Friday, so I’m sure it’ll get a good workout.

Let us know how it goes, there’s a few things I like about the MG.

I have had my Lowrance Ghost for a year now and I like it. I've had the Ultrex in the past and both are comparable in that they are easy to steer and the anchor feature works well.

The Ghost is a little quieter in that the steering noise isn't quite as loud. As far as under water, they all make noise, but I do believe the Ghost is still quieter in this area as well.

As far as toughness and hardware holding up, I give it to Lowrance on this one. I had to replace multiple control cards in the Ultrex foot pedal and so far I haven't had one issue with the Ghost and it's proved it's tough. It does make a wild R2D2 noise with you run into anything, stump, rock, etc...

The only issue I have had with the Ghost is that the motor quit self correcting upon stowing and I had to physically reach down and turn the motor by hand so I could get it stowed. I worked the issue through with tech support and we found that they did not list in the manual the instructions for the bow/mount offset and once we recalibrated the bow/mount offset it was good again and hasn't happened since.

I switched to the Ghost because I run Lowrance Live graphs and I wanted the integration features. I still don't use them all but the "Go to Cursor" feature and anchor upon arrival is awesome. Say you're fishing a brush pile and you get hung and while trolling up to it to try to get free you end up breaking off. Well if you haven't completely blown up the brush pile you can set the cursor back to where you were and hit "Go to Cursor" and "Anchor upon arrival" you are hands free to retie all while the TM is doing the work. Pretty slick.

The one thing about the foot pedal I don't like is that the keys are too easy to accidentally push with your foot. The programable buttons are pretty slick but I had the 2 & 3 key set to heading lock and constant on but I find I hit them accidentally most of the time and before you know it you're holding on for dear life as it just takes off on 8 power when you're not expecting it so I've just disarmed them. I did use the 3 key for weigh points but I found that I was just dropping random weight points when I didn't mean to and having to spend time cleaning them off the memory so I don't use that feature anymore. I have power pole foot pedal buttons so I don't need programable keys for that or else I would dropping my poles all the time.

I also like the fact the the whole head does not turn when you are steering and the dual action shock makes deploying and stowing so easy and smooth.

Nice report