Which do you prefer and why? We are happy with our Ultrex besides it being a little noisy at times and the power switch randomly coming on….

Replace the power switch. Mine went bad and it costs about $15 bucks and takes 30 seconds to fix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrIHgowo5zI

I wish someone unbiased would do a good review on all that's out there. It's 50/50 on all brands that I talk to. 50% say a brand is awesome while the other 50% say it's complete junk. And salesmen are going to push whatever they get the best commission on. I ordered a new boat two weeks ago. I talked with my guy for about 30 minutes on this subject. His final suggestion to me was every brand out is honestly junk, and what it boiled down to which brand is easiest and fastest to get repaired.

This!!! The power switches in them are notorious for shorts.

It doesn’t cost anything to fix. Remove the switch, tighten the female 1/4” connectors, reinstall the switch. When the switch turns “off”, the motor turns on…when the switch turns “on” the motor turns off.

The switch doesn’t do enough to fail. A loose connector is the issue 99.9% of the time when the Ultrex “turns on and off on its own”.

I have fished with ultrex and ghost, not used the force. I don't think either of them are bad motors, I am a fan of how quite the ghost is and that I can switch the voltage if I decide to add another battery. I got used to each one fast enough that the different steer systems did not make much difference. Other than that my honest opinion would be buy the one that can be controlled with your graphs. That for me is a much bigger deal and means a lot more than one motor over the other. One of my favorite features is being able to use my graph to plot a trail then tell the motor to go run it so I can fish and not mess with the trolling motor.

I have fished with both the Ultrex and the force.. I love my force.. The force have more power, easy to deploy and pretty easy to use. Now the trolling motor remote takes a little bit to get use to and spot lock on the Ultrex is a little better but the spot lock on the garmin is good. One reason why I went to garmin was because I run garmin graphs.. I would buy Ultrex if you running Bird's and if you are running Garmin I would get the force. Both are great trolling motors..

This was exactly what I did to fix the same issue.

I installed the Force in February and have no issues with it. Being it is electronic/digital steering it takes a minute to get used to, compared to the cable steering. Other than that it is powerful and quiet, no issues here.
You'll hear more bad stories then good, because if someone has a bad experience these days, they run right out and whine about it. Where as if you don't have any issues, you tend to not say much.
I chose Force because I went with Garmin graphs. So I think your decision will be based upon which graphs you want to run since they don't all talk to each other anymore unless you install separate transducers.

I think that MinnKota will step up their game and switch to a brushless motor very soon. Also, PowerPole is coming out with a trolling motor soon as well.

Thanks for all the great answers guys, reason I’m asking is because on our next boat we are thinking about going all garmin but we truly aren’t sure yet because we LOVE our birds….

Have a 2017 Ultrex other than busted cables one time. It’s been
great.

I never turn the switch off. Instead I turn the breaker off at the battery. Never had an issue this way.

FWIW I have the Ghost (goes with my electronics) on one boat and Ultrex (used in a shallow lake and not much need for electronics) on the other. I'll take either. I know it's not a Force but hope that helps a little.

I had nothing but birds since I can remember, switched to all garmin and not looking back.
best feature of the force over the ultrex is the brushless motor, quiet and can be run in 24 or 36v just by changing the batteries around.
they basically do the same thing but the force has awesome power and is more quiet.

jmo..

Ultrex is too noisy.