Fender Squire Suspect Quality Control

[bassatnight]

Hi All,

 

I purchased a Squire Sonic P bass in California blue over the last weekend and it promptly arrived on Monday via a courier. Upon opening and admiring the lovely blue finish I took the QC tag off the tuner and gave it a quick once over.

 

I checked the finish and all seemed fine until my observant wife noticed a very small chip to the paintwork n the underside of the body, annoying but I can live with it. I then I checked the neck and frets, neck fine and the odd “rough” fret but nothing I can’t easily remedy and then checking the tuners noticed that four of the screws on two separate tuners were only screwed halfway in. 
 

Considering it came with a fully approved, signed off QC tag, just what quantifies as a fail!?
 

ok, it is a £130 squire that I bought as a practice and back up P bass. So, am I expecting too much, or is this standard for a Squire these days, in terms of quality control.
 

I have photographed and reported the issues to the store and Fenders/Squires customer service, just to see the reaction.
 

After fixing the issues, she plays like a dream, so I won’t be returning, perhaps I can put the chip down as road worn! 😉

Cheers,

Steve.

 

Edited August 21, 2024 by bassatnight

[Delberthot]

I ordered one last year which arrived in a box in perfect condition but this was what i found inside. Suffice to say that it went straight back

[mowf]

1 minute ago, Delberthot said:

I ordered one last year which arrived in a box in perfect condition but this was what i found inside. Suffice to say that it went straight back

I've seen worse relicing ( is that how it's spelt?), to be fair.

[Mokl]

I suspect QC at this level may be little more than "are all the parts there?", "does it have strings". Anything much more likely isn't viable from a production volume/economic perspective?! 

 

Glad it's good otherwise, though, and will be interesting to hear whether you get a response. 

 

Squire QC seems way better now on average than they were 15 odd years back when I used to sell them, but even then they were often decent. I expect modern manufacturing methods has a lot to do with it, as is often proclaimed on the various forums.