Should I return guitar or fix it?

March 9, 2006 8:55 AM

I bought a guitar on Ebay "significantly not as described"-- should I send it back?

I bought this guitar on Ebay, and it has a number of problems. When I got the guitar it was obvious changes had been made from the pictures on the auction—the knobs and switch had been moved to the normal Gibson layout, and the bridge was swapped out for a different one. That didn’t bother me too much, but when I plugged it in the guitar had been rewired to adjust both pickups with only one volume, none of the other knobs seem to do anything, and the selector switch is reverse of normal (Treble down instead of up.) Took it to practice and plugged it into my 100W tube Carvin and its so noisy there’s no way I could use it on stage. Plus it starts to feedback at about 3 or 4 on the volume, like it has been hotwired or something.

I put in a claim with PayPal, and they have approved a refund if I ship back at my expense. I assume that I will not get back my original shipping fees, so that would put me out $80 on this deal. Other than the wiring the guitar is in good shape—plays nice, neck seems straight, etc. If I could get the guitar rewired for less than the $40 it will cost to ship it back, I’d think about it—is that a reasonable price? Is it possible that the rewiring did something to mess up the pickups? Don’t want to pay to replace those. Any advice or past experiences would be great—I have 10 days to ship, so I need to make a decision fast.

posted by InfidelZombie to Shopping (12 answers total)

I doubt that you could get your guitar rewired for $40. From what you describe, it was probably worked on by someone who was less than professional, so you don't really know what kind of shape it's in internally. I would estimate at least $80+ for getting it fixed by someone who knows their stuff (this is what I would expect in Montreal Canada, so YMMV).
posted by dobie at 9:12 AM on March 9, 2006

The microphonic pickups can be a result of it being dropped or frozen at some point.
posted by jon_kill at 9:14 AM on March 9, 2006

send it back. I promise you, you will never be happy with it.
posted by unSane at 9:19 AM on March 9, 2006

You bought someone else's lemon. Yes, you should return it.
posted by cribcage at 9:49 AM on March 9, 2006

Send it back and leave negative feedback.
posted by bshort at 9:50 AM on March 9, 2006

Send it back for real. Think about it- somebody obviously tried to sell you a sub-par quality guitar, and this is the stuff that you discovered within a day or two of having it. What else are you going to discover in a month? Obviously the guy sucks at taking care of his guitars.

Leave as much negative feedback as you possibly can in the feedback field, especially mention that you lost 80 dollars dealing with this guy. That will make people reluctant to deal with him again in the future, especially if he tries to resell the guitar. At the very least it will force him to detail exactly what is wrong with the guitar when he resells it.
posted by baphomet at 10:10 AM on March 9, 2006

Contact the seller before you leave -ve feedback. Ask if they are willing to reimburse your shipping.
posted by unSane at 10:11 AM on March 9, 2006

See, I look at that and see it as an opportunity. The wiring inside guitars is ludicrously simple, and I see rewiring as a DIY project. Look at Complete Guitar Repair as a reference (many guitar-oriented stores carry it on their shelves). Then if you have a good guitar tech, see how much it would cost for a lesson in soldering.

This job requires wire cutters (maybe), wire strippers, a soldering iron, solder, a solder sucker (or solder wick), and maybe some replacement shielded wire and heat shrink tubing.

You can get nearly all of that for $20. Mind you - it's mostly crap and won't last for more than a few jobs, but still.

From start to finish, rewiring an electric guitar is about 2 hours of work if you're comfortable soldering.

At the very least, get an estimate from a repair shop. This is not a hard repair.
posted by plinth at 10:15 AM on March 9, 2006

DO NOT just leave negative feedback.

Please, take photos of it. Take photos of EVERYTHING. Then make up a web page about it (at your own domain, hopefully, where the URL won't change) and detail every little bit.

If you just leave negative feedback, the buyer can then ding *you* with negative feedback, like "user misunderstood auction - bad buyer - his fault!" or something like that.

Print the original auction to a PDF file and include it in the page. Take photos of what you actually did receive and compare them to the photos in the auction.

I had a friend get scammed on eBay before, and the web page trick worked. Turns out that the scammer had done this to other people, and they wrote in with their stories. (eBay still did absolutely nothing and Paypal never refunded the money even after they were bitchslapped with the facts, but that's another story..)


But to answer the question, yes, send it back, and demand that they reimburse you for at least half of the shipping. That's only fair.
posted by drstein at 10:21 AM on March 9, 2006

Negative feedback will almost always get you retaliatory negative feedback, just a heads up. Ebay sucks.
posted by knave at 10:21 AM on March 9, 2006

I wouldn't attempt to repair it unless you've talked to the seller and are certain that it only needs to be rewired. It sounds fishy to me. Rewiring is simple, but there might be other issues. Have you contacted the seller?

I bought an amp from a guy on ebay (Mesa studio 22) and had issues with it. I talked to the seller, and then over the phone with the guy who had checked it out (at a reputable shop) who said the amp was fine before it got shipped. The seller offered to take the amp back, but we opted to split the cost of repair, which ended up being not very much money at all, much less than the hassle of sending the amp back. Not ideal, but the amp works great now. Maybe once you've talked to the seller you can work something out.
posted by drobot at 10:27 AM on March 9, 2006

Response by poster: Thanks for all the good advice. I did talk to the seller-- he said the guitar is fine, and even denies changing the knobs and bridge (though I have pictures to prove it.) My first offer was for him to reimburse me for repairs, but he wasn't interested in that. He already has the same guitar up for auction again, though it is still in my posession.

I thought about rewiring it myself, but I'd rather have a pro do it. Plus I am worried about discovering new problems in the furture, as baphomet mentioned. I'm shipping this sucker back.
posted by InfidelZombie at 11:24 AM on March 9, 2006