Overkill Overkill said:
Maybe it's for a lack of looking, but I haven't seen a whole lot of discussion on new vs. used. I did see a post about how warranties are invalidated on used products - correct? Based on my research on posts on these forums, the Minelab Excalibur seems to be the overwhelming choice for salt and freshwater. Because I live in Missouri, I will be doing probably 70% of my hunting in freshwater (E.g., Party Cove at Lake of the Ozarks), but I will be making occasional jaunts (like early May) down to FL's Gulf side (saltwater). So stay away from PI units, correct? I predict I will be spending most of my time in ankle deep to chest deep water. I've been reading some excellent posts about various detectors. Any others that may fit what I am looking for? White's Dual Field?, Infinium?, Garrett Sea Hunter II, Minelab Excalibur?
Finally, where can one look for good used detectors besides Craigslist and E-bay?
Thanks in advance.
First, as always it is buyer beware..........
The best place to find used machines is on the for sale boards by members you feel you can trust. I have bought 8 used detectors, 1 off of EBay and 7 off the boards and everyone has arrived in perfect working order. I lost the bid on a couple more off of EBay that I was after, and those who won left positive feedback....
Some of the detectors the warranty is transferable, and others are not....Minelabs warranty is not transferable, Whites is one time, Tesoro is Lifetime to the original owner only, but you may get it fixed as a second owner, it is up to Tesoro....I do not know the other brands warranty policy.
Excal warranty is only good for one year, so warranty is out to any owner after the year is up from date of first sale.....If you save enough money on a good unit, then what you save would cover expense and then some. I have owned 5 Excals, only one has had to go in for repair, it went in twice, once because left side of headphones stopped working, and other because I cracked coil.... Both trips total was under $200 there and back, I am still well below the cost of a new Excal on it.
My last used Excal cost me $475 with shipping and it arrived in perfect working order, few scratches is all....I would have to spend $700 in repairs to reach the cost of a new Excal on it, I don't see that ever happening, and I would have no problem getting more then what I paid for it back if I wanted to sell it.
Only problem with PI is it has little to no discrimination, it is almost dig everything, and they are deep. If there is a lot trash or a lot of iron in the water even tiny pieces of iron you will be digging deep holes for it. The biggest advantage to an Excal is it nulls on iron (momentary loss of threshold) yet will still tell you if there is gold right beside that piece of iron, the others will not... You can stick an iron wire through a gold ring and the Excal will null then report the gold. (always resweep nulls 90 degrees from original sweep just to be sure)
I have never owned White's Dual Field, Infinium or Garrett Sea Hunter II, they are PI's so others will have to report on them....I am too old to dig deep holes for bobbypins..
I have lived in Missouri and been to Party cove at Lake of the Ozarks many times, you will be doing a lot of digging, there are hundreds of tiny fish hooks, and thousands of pull tabs there...........
Last, as always it is buyer beware..........
