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to buy just the control box from Minelab? If so what would the approximate cost be?
It seems you could buy the 305 like I did and then add the controll box of say the 705.....This makes more sense to me than buying another complete detector. Just curious if anyone knows the answer.......thanks
I remember a couple years ago this same question came up. At that time, I was told that Minelab will not sell directly. According to their Dealer Agreements, all sales must go through the Authorized Minelab Dealer network. As such, it is up to each dealer as to whether or not they wanted to sell just the housings. My suggestion would be to contact your "dealers of choice" and see if they will sell you one. HH Randy
Randy, thanks for the answer to my question. It does seem to be a practical way to upgrade your detector for people starting out with the 305 and then finding out they want the extra options the 705 provides.
Hi guys, before you read this, keep in mind that this is not a flame towards Minelab or their dealers, this is just why I think you won't see the controllers sold by themselves.
I can see why you guys would want to do this but I'm not sure how Minelab would benefit by doing this and that's probably why we will never see the controllers sold by themselves. Sure they could make money on selling just the controller but probably not near as much as selling the whole kit.
Let's look at this a different way and maybe it makes sense why they would not want to do that.
What if you purchased a new gold package and you tried to sell everything off except for the control box. You would have to set some value on what the control box is worth to you and then try and get the remainder of what you paid for the gold package back by selling off all of the miscellanious parts. I have a feeling that there would be no way of making a profit on those items let alone breaking even. The dealers are already selling the items individually and being that most people are pretty savvy online shoppers, unless you found someone that was out of touch bidding on eBay, that's the only way it would be worth your while to do it that way. Who is willing to take that risk of breaking even and then what value do you set on just the controller to feel happy that it worked out in your favor.
I guess what I am getting at is that Minelab is probably not willing to devalue their product by muddy'ing up there supply chain by offering just the controller. Afterall we would want that at a good price being that we don't need the other items. Here is my point.
By Minelab selling the entire kit, it's really easy to hide a decent amount of profit into the overall package unlike you could do by selling just the controller. Things get even worse at the dealer level becuase I would have loved to tell my dealer that I didn't want the $200 or so of "extras" that came with my detector and have them knock $200 off of the cost of the detector. I doubt you will find any dealer willing to do that because of some obvious ground rules that Minelab sets with their dealers.
Minelab appears to have fixed bottom price that all of the dealers have to stick to. It appears as though they will allow or maybe have no control over only letting dealers entice potential customers to buy from them by throwing in these add on items that everyone seems to advertise. That really makes things even worse because how could you ever figure out what the detector is really worth. I know that the dealer that I purchased my 705 from offered a $20 off coupon that is for any item in their store over $200. If I would have asked them for $20 off of the 705, Minelab would probably not allow them to sell below the lowest street price. But, Minelab probably does not have any say so and I'm sure the dealer would not have to tell Minelab that the order was placed and a coupon code dedcuted $20 off of one of their items.
Don't get me wrong, I'd be all for buying another 705 controller to have as a spare but Minelab would be foolish to sell those separately. I don't think that you will find any dealers willing to break up a kit because Minelab has that extra padding in the kit and the dealer can already buy the hardware pieces and coil at probably a better price than they can make by parting out a kit.
JMHO (wow, that's the first time I felt I had to use that)
This post and question has come up before. Where I do not know. I believe the answer is no. I agree with mapper.
Does any other detector manufacturer sell just the controller? I doubt it, but I am unlikely to ask either. I I bought a machine so cheap and all it needed was a brain I would just send it to Garrett, Whites, and so on.
Roger
Good Question Though, send ML an email and let us know.
