Garrett Axiom Customer Service

[Jeff McClendon]

I really like my Axiom. However I was having an issue with my 11X7" DD coil. It would not ground balance using the Fine timing and would usually ground balance in the Normal timing. My 11X7" Mono had no problems ground balancing in Fine or Normal on the same ground. Kind of odd. I called Garrett and they immediately gave me an RMA number. Since I had owned my Axiom for more than 30 days, they asked me to pay for shipping to them and they paid for shipping back to me. I made a video and sent it to them. I also asked for an extra coil bolt. 

I only sent the coil, not the entire detector.

I got my new 11X7" DD coil today via FedEx and they remembered my request for an extra coil bolt, so a 2.5 week turnaround which is really good in my opinion. So far this new DD coil seems to be working much better than my original one.

Thanks Garrett and thanks to Steve H for encouraging me to send it in for a checkup and replacement if needed.

 

[Bill (S. CA)]

Garrett customer service is run like it should be.  I've never had a bad experience with them.

[Knomad]

Jeff, Not to be negative, BUT, The truth is NOTHING improves if you do not critique it.!  

If you are in Colorado and not Australia or another country, two and a half weeks is not impressive, a week would have been.  I had Coiltek replace a bad 5x10 Nox coil in a week, impressive.  I applaud Garrett for a Good Start on a near top notch P.I machine, Now pay attention to it's shortcomings and keep improving it to make it top notch..!

I am also not impressed with their wireless headphone system with the Axiom that seems to have a weak transmitter and maybe a too directional antenna, that often will lose signal just 4 or 5 feet away, sometimes much less. And the phones themself are not impressive and I find uncomfortable.

FWI, The latest standard Bluetooths are very close to the Low Latency versions, WHY did Garrett not incorporate Bluetooth to give their customers that option that is on other detectors, A $4000 detector that does not have Bluetooth built in like my $900 Nox has, Really.?.! 

Everyone has their own favorite headphones, Trying to make an extra buck locking people into Proprietary Type headphones is just bad policy, even Minelab recognized that and along with Their Proprietary system put a fast generally good Bluetooth System in the Nox.

Garrett for once impressed me with the Axiom, Now don't think you can set on that accomplishment, it is not Me that you must impress, it is ALL that are looking to buy, and those that use your equipment now. You have shown that you can do what is needed, and that you will at least at times Listen to your customers, Go Forward From There..!!

GO GARRETT..!!

[Chase Goldman]

2 hours ago, Knomad said:

FWI, The latest standard Bluetooths are very close to the Low Latency versions, WHY did Garrett not incorporate Bluetooth to give their customers that option that is on other detectors, A $4000 detector that does not have Bluetooth built in like my $900 Nox has, Really.?.! 

Everyone has their own favorite headphones, Trying to make an extra buck locking people into Proprietary Type headphones is just bad policy, even Minelab recognized that and along with Their Proprietary system put a fast generally good Bluetooth System in the Nox.

So right you are, nothing gets better without a constructive criticism. 

It's funny you hold up ML as a paragon for utilizing universal wireless audio standards as ML did an about face with the new Nox 700/900, Xterra Pro, and the Manticore by taking the latest and greatest low latency industry standard Bluetooth and somehow making it effectively proprietary because nothing that complies with the latest and greatest BT LE standard can connect to their latest detectors unless it has a ML logo on the phones.  Talk about one step forward two steps back.  I guess we should be happy that each of those detectors does not have their own proprietary wireless audio hardware like the way ML used to do it, where the WM-12 wouldn't work on anything other than the GPZ and with the WM-10 wouldn't work anything other than the CTX and the WM-8 wouldn't work with anything but the Nox even though they were all using the same base wireless system.  But no worries, ML is going to come out with a WM-09, and make us pay an arm and a leg for it so we can mercifully plug in our own favorite wired phones to use untethered with the Manticore, Nox 900 etc.  Obtaining the ML proprietary wireless receiver for the Xterra is probably going to cost almost as much as the detector itself if pricing is consistent with the Nox WM-08.   At least Z-Lynk works universally with Garrett's wireless detectors and pinpointer.

I also agree that the Garrett's Z-Lynk is a little finnicky, but solved it by making sure the earcup with the receiver is facing the detector transmitter.  I've since switched to the ML-like Z-lynk receiver so I can plug-in my own favorite headphones.  I don't really care if the connection drops out when I'm 4 or 5 feet from my detector because, obviously, I'm no longer swinging it at that point.    One little heralded feature regarding Z-Lynk is that it is full duplex which means that you if you are using a wireless Carrot you can hear both the Carrot pinpointer and detector audio in your headset simultaneously.  You don't have to switch between the pinpointer and the detector.  Comes in handy when you can't find the target with your pinpointer and you want to quickly swing the detector over the hole or plug to acquire the target again.  No delays associated switching back and forth between the pinpointer and detector like on XP or Nokta.

As consumers, I agree with you that we should demand no less than full satisfaction with our purchases and post sale support.  Frankly, Garrett has impressed me the most when it comes to post sale customer support.  I just wish they would step up their game and now that Axiom is on the street, get competitive in the mid to high end VLF detector marketplace again.  

[Jeff McClendon]

2 hours ago, Knomad said:

Jeff, Not to be negative, BUT, The truth is NOTHING improves if you do not critique it.!  

If you are in Colorado and not Australia or another country, two and a half weeks is not impressive, a week would have been.  I had Coiltek replace a bad 5x10 Nox coil in a week, impressive.  I applaud Garrett for a Good Start on a near top notch P.I machine, Now pay attention to it's shortcomings and keep improving it to make it top notch..!

I am also not impressed with their wireless headphone system with the Axiom that seems to have a weak transmitter and maybe a too directional antenna, that often will lose signal just 4 or 5 feet away, sometimes much less. And the phones themself are not impressive and I find uncomfortable.

FWI, The latest standard Bluetooths are very close to the Low Latency versions, WHY did Garrett not incorporate Bluetooth to give their customers that option that is on other detectors, A $4000 detector that does not have Bluetooth built in like my $900 Nox has, Really.?.! 

Everyone has their own favorite headphones, Trying to make an extra buck locking people into Proprietary Type headphones is just bad policy, even Minelab recognized that and along with Their Proprietary system put a fast generally good Bluetooth System in the Nox.

Garrett for once impressed me with the Axiom, Now don't think you can set on that accomplishment, it is not Me that you must impress, it is ALL that are looking to buy, and those that use your equipment now. You have shown that you can do what is needed, and that you will at least at times Listen to your customers, Go Forward From There..!!

GO GARRETT..!!

I don’t have a problem with the time it took since I mailed the coil late on a Wednesday afternoon using snail mail from Georgia to Texas, and I received it in Colorado 16 days later. Packages take 3 days minimum to travel that far even using a premium service like FedEx. So, at least seven days of travel time plus four weekend days, Garrett Repair had my coil for 5 business days tops.

I purchased the Axiom with 11X7” DD coil and 13X11” Mono coil on purpose since I don’t care for Garrett’s Z-Lynk system. It was a dealer demo unit probably because of that coil configuration without the wireless system and I got it for a great price that saved me enough money to buy a new 11X7” Mono to complete the coils that I wanted.

I have used a Bluetooth system with my Axiom that works great and allows me to use over the ear wireless headphones, earbuds or neckband type hearing devices. 

I don’’t fault Garrett for using its proprietary wireless product in the Axiom.

[phrunt]

The new Bluetooth LE protocol has an option to make it only connect to certain pairing devices, this is incorporated into the technology I would guess for security reasons so companies can make Bluetooth devices using it that can only connect to certain other devices, companies like Minelab that want to lock it down take advantage of this for profits and screw their customers by doing so. 

They don't deserve a pat on the back for this.  

I think a couple of week turnaround is pretty good for a fault, Garrett accepted the problem and resolved it, unlike Minelab with the EMI problem on the 6000 trying to hide, deny and cover it up for the better part of a year before finally accepting they had to do something as the voices kept getting louder.  Even then they worded the notice saying it's an unusual problem not affecting many detectors trying to discourage people from getting it fixed to save them some coin.

No product is going to be perfect, how the manufacturer deals with issues is the important thing to customers and from what I've seen Garrett are top notch.

[Jeff McClendon]

I was able to do a nice 3 hour relic hunt with the replacement 11x7”DD Axiom coil today in an area with very crazy mineralization from salt to iron and mixed together too along with some EMI. The new coil worked fantastic, ground balanced easily and it was much easier for me to interpret what this focused core coil was telling me. I was detecting in Fine because that is what I am used to. I will detect in Large next time and just go for the bigger stuff. I recovered lots of nail fragments, .22 short and 32 Smith and Wesson short shell casings, very old shotgun head stamps, shotgun pellets and fired bullets along with small fishing weights. I did also get a USA 40% silver 1943P War nickel so the Axiom once again seems to like me. It’s mutual.

[Knomad]

I was unaware Minelab has changed to a proprietary wireless system from the good combo system on the 800.

Why change what worked well, their proprietary system worked ok, and the Built In Bluetooth worked with most other Bluetooth systems, BUT like I said Everyone has their own favorite headphone or other system, so TALK ABOUT NOT Customer centered..!

Word of Advice to Garrett -- Take advantage of Minelabs Alienating its customer base with removing functionality WHILE Increasing Prices..!   ADD Built in Bluetooth AND Decrease the price of your Axiom..!  AND Come up with a true competitor to the VERY Successful Equinox.!

[Chase Goldman]

7 hours ago, Knomad said:

Word of Advice to Garrett -- Take advantage of Minelabs Alienating its customer base with removing functionality WHILE Increasing Prices..!   ADD Built in Bluetooth AND Decrease the price of your Axiom..!  AND Come up with a true competitor to the VERY Successful Equinox.!

If a detector has a headphone jack, then it’s pretty easy and inexpensive to add a low latency Bluetooth wireless audio capability to that detector by plugging a $20 BT APTX-LL transmitter into the jack as Jeff has done with his Axiom.  

One of the reasons detector manufacturers have been reluctant to fully buy into Bluetooth and provide it in lieu of their proprietary wireless solutions is that detector audio requires that only low latency protocols and codecs be used.  To date, that leaves only APTX (APTX-low latency and APTX - adaptive) and BT LE with the LC3 codec as candidates.  APTX requires a licensing fee and APTX-LL has been supplanted by APTX Adaptive which has slightly more latency/delay.  APTX-LL is now considered obsolete just 4 years after the Nox was released, and 3rd Party APTX - LL hardware will slowly evaporate from the marketplace as a result.  Eventually leaving those who own detectors solely dependent on BT APTX-LL for wireless audio high and dry (looking at you ML GPX 6000 and Nokta Legend, Score, next gen Simplex and Accupoint owners; legacy Nox’s have the WM-08 as an alternative to their BT radios).  Devices that support BT LE and the low latency LC3 codec have been slow to roll out and there have been some universal compatibility hiccups with certain BT LE chipsets.  

So as you can see, some detector manufacturers like XP, Garrett, Minelab, and Quest might have the perspective that utilizing their proprietary low latency wireless audio solution over which they can exercise some direct control on compatibility, specific features, and the supply chain may result in an overall better long-term customer experience than the constantly shifting landscape that is the BT industry “standard”.

[Steve Herschbach]

I like the original Nox idea - give me BOTH options. But a simple dongle is the easy fix for all detectors one person might own.