So off went the detector to have its $150 modification. This was done fairly quickly and the only hassle, if you can call it that, was it was to be delivered to the local post office as a safety measure due to not being certain anyone would be home to accept the parcel from the courier??? Anyway on arrival I opened the unit to check what was done and as I had taken photo's and scans of the circuit board I could see what the mods consisted of. Now don't get me wrong I found the detector did indeed work better but the only thing touched (or changed) was the eprom or firmware. Now it gets better, I was recently given a detector by a good friend that was purchased in the US the same month as the mods were done. I think you all know what's coming... Yep it had the same firmware and markings on the Firmware. Not satisfied with just that. I took it out and compared it with my mates one and there is no difference in operation or interference. In fact the US one (probably being new and some parts were changed) definitely worked a little better. I was also told by Garrets (Aust) that the US were now shipping to them "Pre Modified". 

 Okay the next question that comes is if you buy one from the US (at around as low as US$1000) will it work okay here and what about warranty. The answer to the first is obviously yes as seen from my own experience, the second is that if you go to www.garrett.com and you will find that they give a 2 year warranty which you can register on their site. Sure the inconvenience is that you will have to send it to the US due to Garrets Australia not willing to honour warranties of detectors bought overseas. They did inform me though if you bought it second hand they and was unaware it was a "US" version they might look at it.