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The Sovereign Is A Hard Machine To Love
- Thread starter Critterhunter
- Start date
Crispy Critter
New member
goodmore said:
Could we possibly get so lucky!
JimmyCT
Well-known member
So sad to hear this. Even before I bought my Sov GT, hearing that the meter has been discontinued made me a bit uneasy. But I really liked what I read about the detector (especially reviews on it) ( here on findmall) Thank God I found a meter right away. I couldn't find the digimeter anywheres so I bought the sunray DTI II. So are you saying even though you would pay to have your older sov or explorer fixed, it can't be due to minelab "not having parts"? huh? 
I truly hope minelab customer service changes.
I truly hope minelab customer service changes. JHM said:
Deep Digger
New member
I use it because it can be modified into what I need it for.... BEACH DIGGIN.
Can put the box behind the elbow and balance it so sweet that even my crippled body
Can swing it for hours. I can hardly Stand the sounds other brands make after using minelabs.
I will say I use the etrac in trash and for coin shooting because it DOES get the deeper coins.......side by side testing
Hands down for etrac at parks, but don't even think about the etrac at the beach unless you really want elbow surgery.
I have never seen a straight shaft for the Etrac...
I shutter to think the GT will fall to the likes of the xs and the musky.
LONG LIVE THE SOVEREIGN GT!!!
Good Luck,
Deep digger
Can put the box behind the elbow and balance it so sweet that even my crippled body
Can swing it for hours. I can hardly Stand the sounds other brands make after using minelabs.
I will say I use the etrac in trash and for coin shooting because it DOES get the deeper coins.......side by side testing
Hands down for etrac at parks, but don't even think about the etrac at the beach unless you really want elbow surgery.
I have never seen a straight shaft for the Etrac...
I shutter to think the GT will fall to the likes of the xs and the musky.
LONG LIVE THE SOVEREIGN GT!!!
Good Luck,
Deep digger
Minelab says they will no longer service them. But if you have a gt or the elite, you wont have a problem. provide yoour will to pay the 65 bucks per hour for service. Also the explorer xs can not be serviced. Older sovereigns are like the meters. They're going away. But you can still make a meter. It's just a meter that measures 0-2 VDC connected to couple of wires coming out of the box. One day we will all own an etrac, they hope.
JimmyCT
Well-known member
Wow $65.00 an hour? I certainly see your point about getting parts for a 1940 radio. When you say the explorer xs can not be serviced what your really saying is that Minelab refuses to work on it. They know if they service the older units, no one will want to "plunk" down $1500.00 bucks on a new one.
JHM said:
Neil
Well-known member
earthlypotluck said:
Jim it might simply be they have cut their staff down in size and dont have the manpower, they have kinda drawn the line as to what they will and will not do.
For us here in the USA, doesnt minelab service the units here and not overseas? Someone who has sent one in can tell us where they service them now. So here in the USA, whats it cost to have a tech on staff full time/yearly cost I mean. Gotta be about $40 grand or so. They would have to do a lot of repairs over that amount to rack up any kind of profit. And no matter how you spin it, its a business and they are out to make a profit, how can anyone expect anything else?
They have given us a little longer warranty and also made the warranties transferable. I know its not Tesoro type warranty but its better.
Before someone buys its best to know what your in for thats for sure.
Neil
Well-known member
JHM said:
Could be they werent selling the meters also, again economics. why make something your not selling. Sovs over $1,000 and you have to buy a meter extra? Even when they were less they probably werent selling a whole bunch of them. Remember way back when Sunray stopped making their DTi meters? Has everyone forgotten about that? That was a parts issue also but hey, if they were selling enough of them, they could have found away around it so I believe they just werent selling enough of them.
Im thinking the Sov in its present form is on its way out.
Minelab appears to be about selling detectors if you can afford to buy a new top of the line minelab every 3 to 5 years than go for it.
The sovereign lacks: marketing and coils and with no meter no more it appears the handwriting is on the wall for the sovereign and that minelabs buisness ways will catch up with them.
If minelab keeps the sovereign gt or even upgrades then that would be more than fair.
Thats enough said, this is a sore topic for me and it hurts!!!
Whites is still servicing those old blue box detectors!!!! with parts!!!!
The sovereign lacks: marketing and coils and with no meter no more it appears the handwriting is on the wall for the sovereign and that minelabs buisness ways will catch up with them.
If minelab keeps the sovereign gt or even upgrades then that would be more than fair.
Thats enough said, this is a sore topic for me and it hurts!!!
Whites is still servicing those old blue box detectors!!!! with parts!!!!
Getting tubes for a 1940 radio is no problem as the same tubes fits so many different radios, this is not the case with the main IC on these detectors as these are changed when new models come out. Now that tube for the 1940 radio used to cost less then 10 bucks, then even lower as more were made, but when less needed to be made these tubes went to over 50 bucks as they didn't make many of them so the cost got higher. I used to repair radios and TV and some were tube types, but the other parts needed like the high voltage transformers in the TVs where hard to find new if the TV was over 4 years old towards last as they were disposable TV and VCR.
Now Minelab charging $65 a hours is not out of line for a good service tech, look at what the auto shops charge as most are over $100 a hour now.
Now I feel why Minelab don't want to repair some of this older detectors is the fact that there is no parts left like the main IC that is different on each different model of Minelabs as so many was made and they have been used up. Now Minelab could have some of these ICs made up, but I am sure it would have to be a larger quantity and the cost would be high like how the old radio tubes have gotten, so would you pay $65 a hour to have a 10 year old detector repaired and parts costing $200 or more. Many would probably say to fix it, but like a auto there is time when it cost more to repair then it is worth.
On the Sovereign and the meter is like Neil said that when people were trying to make their own meters or doing the 180 mods Sun Ray were not selling many, so it was not profitable to keep making them. When Minelab quit making them I felt a new Sovereign was coming out with a built in meter, but haven't seen or heard anything about it yet. With the price increase on the Sovereign I would have bet a new one was coming out, but nothing yet. I just hope they don't discontinued the Sovereign as it is one of the best all time detector made.
Now Minelab charging $65 a hours is not out of line for a good service tech, look at what the auto shops charge as most are over $100 a hour now.
Now I feel why Minelab don't want to repair some of this older detectors is the fact that there is no parts left like the main IC that is different on each different model of Minelabs as so many was made and they have been used up. Now Minelab could have some of these ICs made up, but I am sure it would have to be a larger quantity and the cost would be high like how the old radio tubes have gotten, so would you pay $65 a hour to have a 10 year old detector repaired and parts costing $200 or more. Many would probably say to fix it, but like a auto there is time when it cost more to repair then it is worth.
On the Sovereign and the meter is like Neil said that when people were trying to make their own meters or doing the 180 mods Sun Ray were not selling many, so it was not profitable to keep making them. When Minelab quit making them I felt a new Sovereign was coming out with a built in meter, but haven't seen or heard anything about it yet. With the price increase on the Sovereign I would have bet a new one was coming out, but nothing yet. I just hope they don't discontinued the Sovereign as it is one of the best all time detector made.
Rick you have been a good asset to this forum and have helped me on more than one occasion. I certainly would never want to offend you or anyone else about this. I would like to explain how I developed this attitude about their customer service so people wont think I'm just being a pain in the butt.
I bought a Sovereign GT that was 1 1/2 years old. Shortly after I received it the tabs that hold the rechargeable battery in broke. I called ML and talked to Joe(not his real name but I don't want to get Joe in trouble). Joe said they had had issues with bad plastic and to send in the pack and they would put the batteries in a new case. Most I would have to pay was 5 bucks for the case and maybe the shipping. I explained to him it was not under warranty. He said no problem. Great service I thought.
This was about the time Codan bought out the company. Two weeks later I get a call from Joe's new boss. He wants to know how old the pack is. I explained to him everything I told Joe and what the agreement was. He said we (minelab) can't do anything about the battery. I said then sell me a case and I will fix it.
Reply: Sir we sell detectors not parts
I said then sell me a new battery at cost.
Reply: Let me look that up. That will be $99 plus shipping
At that time you could get one from a dealer for $89 free shipping. At this time I was getting aggravated. I said just send it back and I will tape it in until the batteries wear out. It will be good advertisement for you company.
Reply: If I ship it back it will be a 1 hour labor charge $55 at that time.
This jackass wanted to charge me $55 to put my property back in my box and drop it in the mail. Buy the way I've owned 5 minelabs in the past few years.
I emailed the main overseas office and a month or so later got it straighten out. And had just about got over this when I decided to sell the GT and get an explorer SE. I had drilled a small hole in the lower part of the case for a remote pinpoint. Something that should be on everyone when it comes from the factory. I wanted to put it back original before I sold it and guess what. You cant buy one but you can send the detector to the service center and they will install it for $65 per hour. At this point I decided to get a tesoro and eventually changed my mind and wound up with a (made in the USA) MXT. I agree with you the sovereign is a great detector and I still have an older one that I'm keeping but their customer service stinks.
I bought a Sovereign GT that was 1 1/2 years old. Shortly after I received it the tabs that hold the rechargeable battery in broke. I called ML and talked to Joe(not his real name but I don't want to get Joe in trouble). Joe said they had had issues with bad plastic and to send in the pack and they would put the batteries in a new case. Most I would have to pay was 5 bucks for the case and maybe the shipping. I explained to him it was not under warranty. He said no problem. Great service I thought.
This was about the time Codan bought out the company. Two weeks later I get a call from Joe's new boss. He wants to know how old the pack is. I explained to him everything I told Joe and what the agreement was. He said we (minelab) can't do anything about the battery. I said then sell me a case and I will fix it.
Reply: Sir we sell detectors not parts
I said then sell me a new battery at cost.
Reply: Let me look that up. That will be $99 plus shipping
At that time you could get one from a dealer for $89 free shipping. At this time I was getting aggravated. I said just send it back and I will tape it in until the batteries wear out. It will be good advertisement for you company.
Reply: If I ship it back it will be a 1 hour labor charge $55 at that time.
This jackass wanted to charge me $55 to put my property back in my box and drop it in the mail. Buy the way I've owned 5 minelabs in the past few years.
I emailed the main overseas office and a month or so later got it straighten out. And had just about got over this when I decided to sell the GT and get an explorer SE. I had drilled a small hole in the lower part of the case for a remote pinpoint. Something that should be on everyone when it comes from the factory. I wanted to put it back original before I sold it and guess what. You cant buy one but you can send the detector to the service center and they will install it for $65 per hour. At this point I decided to get a tesoro and eventually changed my mind and wound up with a (made in the USA) MXT. I agree with you the sovereign is a great detector and I still have an older one that I'm keeping but their customer service stinks.
There is no question you had some bad service from Minelab and their policy's, but hope this is not the general rule and they have changed some of their policy's. I know even as a dealer I cant get some of the parts that would be so easy to fix myself without sending the detector in, but that is their policy and we have to live with it. To send your battery pack back to you for any charge is not a good deal at all and that is something I too would question why they wanted to do that, the most if anything would be the postage.
One of the things i feel led up to some of this was when so many tried to modify their detectors and burned something out and they tried to send them in for warranty, some were send it to be repaired and explained they had been working on it and it quit working and wanted it fixed free or cheap. I am sure many were repaired for free and for only the cost of the parts, but because it was abused too many time they had to stop doing this and go for the labor and a mark up on the parts too.
What gets me is some of the dealers don't stock the parts to repair the simple little problem like the nylon nuts and bolts, extra lower shafts, plastic arm cuffs and alkaline battery boxes as this is something they should stock to take care of the little problems that should arise, no one should have to call Minelab other for information as all parts are to be gotten from the dealer network.
Anyway I am not offended and like to hear about some of the problems others are having with any detector companies as I know a few problems get slipped between the cracks, but when it is over and over again you know they are having a problem and one that slipped though the cracks..
It is too bad you have had your share of problem with Minelab and hope others don't have to experience any problems.
Rick
One of the things i feel led up to some of this was when so many tried to modify their detectors and burned something out and they tried to send them in for warranty, some were send it to be repaired and explained they had been working on it and it quit working and wanted it fixed free or cheap. I am sure many were repaired for free and for only the cost of the parts, but because it was abused too many time they had to stop doing this and go for the labor and a mark up on the parts too.
What gets me is some of the dealers don't stock the parts to repair the simple little problem like the nylon nuts and bolts, extra lower shafts, plastic arm cuffs and alkaline battery boxes as this is something they should stock to take care of the little problems that should arise, no one should have to call Minelab other for information as all parts are to be gotten from the dealer network.
Anyway I am not offended and like to hear about some of the problems others are having with any detector companies as I know a few problems get slipped between the cracks, but when it is over and over again you know they are having a problem and one that slipped though the cracks..
It is too bad you have had your share of problem with Minelab and hope others don't have to experience any problems.
Rick