"Pro" replacement of a pickup

[Gasp100]

I don't want to beat a dead horse (where' the icon when you need it?)
but I'm still a little peeved about the "Bad Setup" (see my post) from my local guitar shop. They are willing to take a look at it again, but I have a friend who will buy the guitar if I put on the original neck and set it up as it was so I'm going to go that route.
I am going to take the guitar back and show them and see about a partial refund or store credit (can't hurt to try.... I hope). But, I need to know from pro's if it's standard when replacing pups to actually cut the leads and just wire together a new pup with the existing leads or not? This seems REALLY lame to me... when I have replaced pups I desolder everything, install the new pups and resolder back together... Apparently that's how Seymour Duncan does it from his video as well.
Am I out of bounds here or asking too much? Please let me know, I'm heading back there shortly.
Peace!

 

[kldonegan]

yeah... that's not normal or professional; it's really lame. and extremely lazy.

 

[Gasp100]

Apparently it is NORMAL AT MIDDLETOWN MUSIC in MIDDLETOWN, DE

Oh yeah, and apparently it's okay if the low E string buzzes like crazy if the guitar is unplugged, as long as it's not AS noticeable plugged in....
And apparently after a setup you still have to set your intonation and put on new strings yourself after a $100 setup....
What a waste of money... I know you can't make chicken salad out of chicken sh*t, but I know the guitar and the neck should play better than this and they are after I put in 4 more hours of work on this thing. I was WAY better off before I dropped this thing off there. :NUTS
People ask why we don't support our Mom and Pop stores; we'll now you know.
The bad part is now I look like a "complainer" and I like these guys too. Oh well, chalk it up to experience I guess. Never again will I pay for a setup or fix unless I absolutely cannot do it just as good myself.

 

[GregoryL]

I have all the respect in the world for strong guitar techs, but like a lot of things, a good tech is hard to find - and good ones are always backed up ... exactly why I finally decided to get 100% comfortable completing my own set-ups and small repairs.

Best tech quote I've heard - in response to a request to properly set up a new guitar I was considering buying, which had extremely high action ... "oh, I don't know if I can get it lower, these 7.25" radius fingerboards are tough to set up".

Again, not intended to bad mouth the many good techs out there, but this made me laugh. I still bought the guitar, took it home and set it up right.

 

[atquinn]

It sounds like these guys have absolutely no business working on guitars. That's ridiculous.

-Austin

 

[Rosewood]

In your other thread I said it may be time to let another tech do the work before they do more damage, I think that time is here. BTW, you should never tie into an existing pickup wire unless you're on a deserted island with no tools, that is really a lazy way of wiring a guitar.

 

[rockinlespaul]

That's absolutely ridiculous. I would demand my money back and make em buy you new pups too...wtf????

I wouldn't cut the leads on pups if I was wiring up a damn 335...sheesh...ridiculous.

 

[Gasp100]

Yeah, I'm pretty bummed about it. And I'm really bummed about the owner more than anything else. Clearly, I called them out on the ****** pup reinstallation and he tried to squirm out of it, saying "you don't want to add any additional heat that could cause damage to the control plate/internals". Well guess what, they were supposed to work on the control plate / internals and look at replacing that stuff too

I put the original neck back on and gave it a little relief, strung it up and tuned it and it's playing great. (I had shimmed the neck before I brought it to them so I'm quite certain the tech didn't even attempt to take the neck off).
This is actually a really good guitar and great quality for the money ($225). I'm selling the guitar (setup by me, the right way) to a friend who is just getting into playing. I'm going to keep the Tele neck and I might try it again with another body later on. I haven't given up hope.
Unfortunately, I can't see any way around boycotting my local store. I could continue to be pissed, or I could just let it go and never deal with them again. Too bad, I'm a good customer that would continue to purchase gear from them, but now -- no way.