This one is about the monsters called Fender, which I have a bit of an addiction to at the moment. lol
Last year (in the thick of it) I rebuilt my friend’s beaten up early 90’s Fender Strat Squier Series. The first gen of the Mexican Fenders had some odd measurements and made mods a bit of challenge. I had to custom make a new pickguard and redo the bridge holes to fit a Wilkinson I bought for it.
The last upgrade was black Fender locking tuners. It was a black out themed guitar. I ordered them from Amazon. I reamed the previous machine head holes for them to fit and it worked out great. The only problem was when I did the final set up some how I broke the locking mechanism on one tuner and it came off. It was upsetting cause I was finally done the rebuilt that I put a lot of work into and was happy with everything else. Well I took a chance and contacted Fender.
At first I asked if I could just order the one tuner but after a couple of emails back and forth she had informed me there are no singles available. She even sent out a request to the shop (which was almost completely shut down cause of all that was happening) to see if there was an extra one lying around but the search came up empty. She then asked me to send her the receipt. I did but didn’t hear anything back for a couple of weeks so I thought it was end of story.
After the second week I got an email apologizing for the delay and to my surprise they decided to send me a whole new set at no charge. Not even for shipping.
The guitar was a special one cause it was the one my buddy learned on and got with his dad when he was still here. In turn it made me very pleased to deal with Fender and complete a project that meant a lot to me and my friend.
Oh hey. I didn’t know this was a thread.
I should summarize my recent experience with Pitbull Audio. I bought a new G&L JB-2 from them via Reverb, and when it arrived it had a horrible, loud, angry buzz whenever I wasn’t touching the strings or bridge. I popped it open, fixed a couple of cold solder joints, re-soldered a ground that popped off when I was poking around, but that didn’t fix it. I played around with some copper shielding tape, that also didn’t fix it.
So I called Pitbull Audio, and they were awesome. I told them everything that had happened; they checked into an exchange, but the model I got was out of stock and no longer available. I wanted to keep the bass because I really liked it aside of the buzz, so they offered to have their techs look at it or, if it would be easier for me, I could have a local tech look at it and they’d reimburse me the cost. Which was pretty effing cool.
So I took it to a local tech who re-soldered some cold joints I’d missed, and changed the jack. That didn’t fix it, though. So I called up Pitbull Audio again, and they offered to refund it, or exchange it for something else. I was this → ← close to getting the RMA, but I decided to go down to Pitbull Audio and exchange it. I’ll be doing that this weekend, and I’ll update on Monday (or, who am I kidding, I’ll probably update the second I get home from there).
So anyway, so far, Pitbull Audio has had great customer service, and for all my woes with this bass I’m glad I purchased it from them.
It goes to show you that its not just what you buy but the experience you had getting it.
Hope you find a replacement that has just a good a story to it.
Shout out to EMG.
I have a set of pickups on order with them for a bit, so I called to see if there’s a hangup. They picked up the phone right away, were super nice, called to see if there was a production issue. There was with the neck pickup, and he said he’d email me with an update.
Couple hours later, I am told it’s shipped. Did they just build me a pickup? I wonder.
Great experience… maybe took a while all told, but the customer service was great.
Shout out to Best Bass Gear. I’ve had a Delano pickup on order for ages for my Surveyor. Delano’s been slow. BBG has kept me in the loop, and it shipped today. Maine to Washington, will be here Tuesday. So I think they’ve upgraded the shipping on their own.
Reviving this with a big shout out to Chicago Music Exchange. I have a shell pink Squier Bass VI on order with them that should come in the fall.
Today I got this email:
Hey John,
I’ve got some great news to share with you about your pre-order Squier order. The price was recently reduced by $50, so I’m immediately issuing you a refund for that amount plus any applicable taxes.
They coulda just done nothing so I’m pretty happy they did that they did.
That’s awesome
if anybody is ever in chicago, its a really cool place to go see, quite the candy store.