Hi,

I just bought a brand new Fender vintage (left hand) bridge/tremolo, and when I inserted the trem arm is did not fit well at all. Due to a misalignment of the hole in the base plate and the hole in the steel block, the arm needs to some degree be forced in. After removing the trem arm, it now has minor visible scars from having been forced in (not on the threaded part, but directly above the threaded part). I tried loosening the three screws in the baseplate and align the baseplate and tighten again, but it did not work as the countersunk screws simply force the baseplate back to where it wants to go. I read somewhere after doing this that this loosening and realignment should be done with the trem arm inserted. I have not tried that yet, but I don't see how that would fix the underlying issue of the holes being somewhat misaligned.

Is this really the norm with these vintage bridges/tremolos, or is it possible that mine is a little out of spec? In other words, if I return it and buy another, will I likely end up with the same issue?

If you have any experience with this, I'd love to know!

Well, I was quite surprised to hear you say that your bridge is in two pieces. I have a vintage Anniversary Strat and the whole bridge seems to be one piece and the whammy bar hole is bored all the way through. At any rate, you are at the Fender forum so you seem to be in the right place. Why not just contact support and ask them to fix your problem. If they screwed this up then they should fix it. Don't try to fix this yourself by re-boring the hole or something, if Fender won't fix it then take it to a machine shop and let them bore the topplate hole a little bigger.