Hi everybody! I have a couple questions that I'm sure someone on here could help me with. I bought a used MIM Strat in December, serial no starts with MZ0, so I'm sure it was made in 2000. I know its not a knock-off or anything of the sort. It does not have the "original contour body" anywhere on the headstock, and was wondering if anyone else has the same thing?
Also, it has a three spring trem. Would there be any reason to add springs to it? Any benefit from it? What would be the downside of adding springs? I don't use it that much, and it works easily enough, no problems with it going out of tune or anything else. Just in case, I use Fender 150TRs (.010- .038) on it, don't know if that would make a difference or not.
The pickups sound a bit hotter than the other standards I tried before I bought this one. Did Fender use "hotter" pu's on the early '00 MIMs?
Thanks in advance for whatever help or opinions you all may give!

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2007 MIM Sunburst Standard Tele
2000 MIM Sunburst Standard Strat
1978 Fender SF Twin Reverb
1978 Ibanez PT-909 phaser
2011 Digitech DigiDelay
2011 Digitech Screamin' Blues OD

Hello Paulie56,

Sounds like a 2000mexico guitar
in straight order as for number of
springs, playing style may dictate
the amount needed, I use 3, I tried
up to 5 and saw no diffferance in
playability so it's been 3 for me,
I'm not a huge tremolo user.
As for you strings 250's & 350's
may add to your tonal color{maybe not}

Best of luck with it.

Cheers.

In regards to the pups: No 2 sets will sound exactly alike. You could play two consecutive guitars straight off the line and they would sound different. Typically hotter pups is a good thing, so consider yourself lucky to have a hotter set. Happy strumming!

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"I started out with nothing, and still have most of it"

1) As to trem springs, do a search on "float" if you are unfamiliar with this concept. The float is how much the bridge is set above the body of the guitar. The Fender spec is 1/8", while many people set it to flush for tuning stability. It is useful to become familar with the pros and cons of different float setups, and also how trem springs & the claw screws affect the tremelo tension, the float, and intonation.

2a) Pickups: Likely you have the normal MIM Std ceramic pickups. But maybe your guitar was another MIM model. So take off your pickgaurd and take a look. The ceramics are very unique looking. If, for some reason, you don't have ceramics, you will likley want to know which model Strat you have and/or if a previous owner swapped them out.

2b) The MIM Std ceramic pickups have a bad rap, but there are those of us that think that they are fairly good. Regardless of what you read on these forums, the vast percentage of MIM Stds out there have the stock pickups.

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Laughing out loud with fear and hope, I have a desperate plan ...

The pickups in my 2000 seem a little hotter than the ones in my 1994.

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1994 Standard Strat, Blue
2000 Standard Strat, Black, with GFS block, and GFS Lil Killer pickup.
2004 Standard Telecaster, Black
1971 Gibson SG
1985 Kramer Baretta
1986 Kramer Vangard
Carvin X60B
Marshall 50 watt 2x12 combo