Review on 🚣 Minn Kota Endura Max Transom Mount Shaft Thrust by Carlos Barete

I bought this brand brand new in June 2017. I wanted to stick with a reputable brand as I knew I wouldn't use them often, but when I did it was important that it worked. I installed it on my boat and tried it on the dock to make sure everything was working properly. I used it for less than 10 minutes in 2017. I ran it twice in 2018 to move the boat while docking. Maybe just 10 minutes. In 2019 I decided to install it on my small 15ft John boat to try it out. I wanted to see if it was as good on the battery as advertised. I walked (approximately) 4 miles across a 12 mile lake at 1/2 to 3/4 speed on my aluminum 15 foot Johns boat. After about 3 km it stopped working. I picked it up and looked for dirt etc but found nothing. It mysteriously started again and propelled the boat another mile before I switched to a larger petrol engine. Fast forward to today. I took it out of my heated garage and installed it on my little boat. I remembered what happened last year, lowered it into a barrel of clean water and tried it. It was very sluggish at first, but eventually picked up speed both forwards and backwards. Then I took the boat to the local lake, which has only one trolling motor. I made it 100 feet from the dock before it failed. The battery gauge showed a full charge (it was connected to a new deep cycle marine battery), but the propeller refused to turn in any direction. Now that I was 100 feet from the dock and picking up speed, I lifted the engine and checked for obstacles. Nothing was found. I managed to get the propeller out with the limited tools I had on hand. Everything was good there too. I was able to get the propeller to spin intermittently by leaving the power on and spinning it by hand, but it made a horrible squeak (like bad bearings) and stopped spinning. The more I tried, the less it even tried to spin. I am very disappointed in this product and would not recommend it to anyone! The extended battery life is great, but not when it's extended because the engine isn't running! I don't know my total hours, but I can assure you it's less than a dozen!