I have a useless $2700 custom plus had to pay 78 dollars for FMIC to tell me.. w/pics

[slash]

I think Bionic may be the right guy to try to contact. He'll probably see this thread eventually, but I'd PM him & see if he can help you out. Hope this works out.

Bionic works for FMIC. Send him a PM to get in contact with the right person. If he can't help you out let me know.

[Larz]

That sucks, that's a great looker.

Maybe FMIC half-assed their solution to the problem given that is has been so long since it was shipped to you (18 months).

Who did you speak with at FMIC when they said it would be taken care of if you shipped it to them? Just some phone rep or someone with some actual pull?

[AK47]

That sucks, that's a great looker.

Maybe FMIC half-assed their solution to the problem given that is has been so long since it was shipped to you (18 months).

Who did you speak with at FMIC when they said it would be taken care of if you shipped it to them? Just some phone rep or someone with some actual pull?

Just a phone rep. I was assured by the GC people then a FMIC phone rep that everything will be taken care of. No one specifically stated I would get a new neck. They just said it "Will be taken care off" I did not push the issue I figured someone would recognize the guitar and take care of it at FMIC.

By the way I paid Torres 60 bucks to tell me my guitar is fucked and I paid GC 78 dollars to tell me to get fucked. So thats 138 dollars I am out on top of the guitar cost.

[Spivonious]

Why did you wait until now? If I paid $2700 for a guitar that was obviously defective, it would be sent back within a week.

Regardless, I hope you can get in contact with someone from Charvel and get this straightened out (no pun intended).

[SEEGERMANY]

if its back bowed, try loosening the truss rod & stringing it up with 11's or 12's. it maybe worth a shot.

I don't think he's saying that you have to play it with heavy gauge strings, but to string it this way to possibly help cure the problem. After all, you haven't played it in 18 months.

If that doesn't work and FMIC doesn't step up to the plate, the only other thing that might work is to have the neck planed.

[shreddermon]

As Neilli said, it's hard to tell from the pics and description what the cause of the problem is - we're only seeing the symptom.

From what I can tell, the neck does not appear to have a backbow. If that were the case, you would more likely have a problem with buzzing and/or fretting out towards the middle of the fretboard, not the 1st fret. Again, though, hard to tell from what we're seeing/reading here. The only way to know for sure would be to use a straight edge to measure it. StewMac makes a specialized one with notches in the fret positions, and it's been great for me to more accurately gauge truss rod adjustments for my necks.

More likely, it seems like the angle of the neck is wrong, relative to the straight line between the bridge and nut. That would be consistent with the pics showing the action being too low near the nut and too high near the bridge. My guess is that the neck - and possibly the nut, too - just needs to be shimmed a bit to produce a better alignment with the strings, and then the guitar set-up just redone consistent with the new angle. (Opinions on shimming vary. But the reality of dealing with guitar woodworking is that every maufacturer does it where needed - high bucks custom shop or otherwise. Woodworking tolerances can minimize the incidences of needing shims, but not eliminate it. Many guitars - including some of my CS's - need shims, and it has little or no effect on tone.)

In any event, it's clear that authorized service center didn't do their job. The problem was not resolved satisfactorily. As others have stated, I would PM McD or Bionic - they've been helpful in resolving these kind of issues before. Good luck.

[EmperorKabir]

if they f*ck you around too much, just threaten court action and they should panic and sort it out.

though this seems so bad that they probably won't even have the guts to even try to mess you around.

[Larz]

if they f*ck you around too much, just threaten court action and they should panic and sort it out.

Panic? A company like FMIC probably sees lawsuits almost every day. That type of threat may work better among individuals to a transaction or smaller companies, but FMIC will have a huge legal budget and legal team to play around with if they desired to contest it. He'd have to be willing to spend more money on it too, at least up front.

Maybe a small claims type of thing would work though.

[Robert Burns]

Man this sucks!! And what a great looker too... I'll bet this is your last
new' Charvel? Used in mint condition from now on.. IMO since it's
been 18 months...Charvel should ship you a BRAND NEW FUCKING CS
OF YOUR CHOICE FOR FREE! It's called "Word of mouth" good advertising!
Man, i hope this somehow gets resolved?

[Bionic]

AK47, please PM me with your email address.

Thanks,

Mike

[StukaJU87]

Man, i hope this somehow gets resolved?

AK47, please PM me with your email address.

Thanks,

Mike

Something tells me this will work out.

[hgsmith]

AK47 I feel your frustration, I ordered a CS natural Korina Soloist in July of 2005. The guitar took 24 months to complete and was the wrong color and the 5-way switch was wired backwards. After being delivered damaged by UPS, I returned it to Matt and decided that I’d like a CORRECT replacement. He ordered a replacement only to have clear coat separation issues. This whole ordeal took over three years to resolve. I chose to have Matt send me a new PRS single-cut as a suitable replacement for this goatfuck caused by FMIC and Jackson. I own several CS Jacksons and CS Fender Strats. I will not buy or recommend the purchase of any FMIC product after my buying experience. On the other hand, Matt was “first class” in resolving the issue and replacing my order with a nice PRS.
Oh, forgot to mention that my CS smallbatch transflame PC-1 had neck pocket cracks right out of the box. That one pissed me off...
No more new Jacksons/Charvels/FMIC for me

[AK47]

AK47, please PM me with your email address.

Thanks,

Mike

Info sent I am looking forward to a resolution.

[Ben...]

I dont know whos who any more since McD left or got reassigned. Jackson and Charvel are seperate entities now so I dont know who works where otherwise I would have sent a PM to one of them.

When did this happen?

[AK47]

Why did you wait until now? If I paid $2700 for a guitar that was obviously defective, it would be sent back within a week.

Regardless, I hope you can get in contact with someone from Charvel and get this straightened out (no pun intended).

If you understand what a headache it was trying to get Guitar Centet to ship it back to FMIC instead of the GC tech telling me its OK after Torres says its unplayable.

Its one of those things you dont really want to deal with because you know its going to be a headache and I knew I could lose alot of time bitching and calling everyday. I worked alot and traveled out of town alot as well the last year and a half I just did not have the energy to put into dealing with this issue day after day. Once I got it shipped to FMIC finally I figured things would work out...

Then they said come pick up your guitar. I went to go get when I was back in the area and this is what transpired.