I have a friend and ex-neighbor who was president of his state's B.A.S.S. Nation for many years. He has contacts with a lot of equipment sales reps. He got me a new MG Tour Pro (without built in transducer) for 45% off of what Bass Pro is selling them for. It cost me a bit to have him ship it to me but it was still a heck of a deal. I felt I owed it to Mercury to give them a plug. I rewired the boat with nice new 6 gauge wire and a new circuit breaker and put on a new Garmin Striker Plus 7 sonar up front to replace the 10 year old HDS-5 that was there. I went fishing yesterday in some pretty stiff wind on Guntersville. Both the motor and the sonar worked great. The original TM was a MG 75# fully manual. I sold it on Facebook in 6 hours. Should have asked more for it I guess. ;) I don't know if it will catch any fish for me but it is sooo much more relaxing to have the GPS automation doing 85% of the work running the trolling motor. Both virtual anchor and heading lock with cruise control are very useful. The big head on the motor looks a little clunky but that's part of the design. I obviously can't say anything about the reliability yet. Time will tell.
I was going to wait until my original motor died before replacing it but the thought occurred to me that I might die first so I took the plunge.