Hello, everyone.

My American Deluxe HSS is not even two months old and I've already started having some problems with its neck pickup .

Last week it started loosing its output from time to time. I was playing it and suddenly I would get no sound from it. At first I suspected a bad connection between my guitar and my amp but after a while I decided to tap the pickup lightly and it came back to life.

I suspect a bad contact, but I don't know enough of guitar electronics to be sure. Only the neck pickup behaves like this. What do you think?

Now, from time to time, it dies again and I tap or shake it a little and it starts giving sound again.

What should I do?

Oh, and even though it's still on warranty, I'm now living in Brazil... so does anyone know about an authorized service shop around here (the next time I'll be in the U.S. will be in September, still on time for the 1 year warranty on pickups, but I'd like a solution faster )

Thanks for helping...

Cold solder joint. It's a warranty issue for sure. Recommend calling Fender and getting the name of the nearest rep. I'll bet there is somebody who can help.

_________________
James Burton Upgrade Telecaster
Hot Rodded Am Fat Strat Texas Special (now featuring Kinman Traditional II pickups)
Fender Blues Jr.
SWR California Blonde
Pedals Pedals Pedals

Contact Fender on this site under the support button! Good luck!

Hi strangedata:

You need this page:

http://www.fender.com/resources/interna ... %20America

I'm happy to mess with this kind of stuff myself. But on a two month old guitar? Take to any authorised Fender dealer, anywhere, and get it dealt with under warranty. Working with the soldering yourself will invalidate the warranty - not good if any other issues occur.

Cheers - C

Hey, thanks for answering!

I contacted Pride Music, the listed distributor for Brazil in that page Ceri directed me to, but unfortunately they told me that they would no honor the warranty for an international instrument.

I'll try to get in touch with Fender directly, as fhopkins suggested. Maybe they can help me out with this distributor.

soggycrow, assuming it's a cold soldering problem, do you think it would be too expensive to fix?

Thanks again!

its an super easy repair, for anyone who can solder. Personally i would do it myself, but I have experience soldering.


How expensive depends on your tech. I would see how much the guys you listed above would charge. If it is cheap enough get it done there instead of waiting til you travel. They are licensed so even if they don't honor the warranty, them working on it shouldn't void it.

Hello, everyone.

It's been a while since I emailed Fender regarding the warranty, but so far I've got no answer from them... maybe someone from customer relations reading the forum will notice my post

Anyway, the authorized service shop sent me an email telling me that they would charge around US$30 + parts (if needed) to service electronic defects. It seems pretty expensive to me, but what do you think?

I agree with the post up above. Once you get access it should be a very easy fix. Identifying the cold joint is sometimes hard because the solder joints often look fine. Sometimes they just don't jump up at you. But reflowing a joint should just take seconds for somebody who can solder.

_________________
James Burton Upgrade Telecaster
Hot Rodded Am Fat Strat Texas Special (now featuring Kinman Traditional II pickups)
Fender Blues Jr.
SWR California Blonde
Pedals Pedals Pedals