I've only had my American since June so I can't judge long term fretwear on it yet but I haven't noticed anything so far. I've had my Mexican Strat since 2005, have played it nearly everyday since, and there is only a tiny bit of fretwear at most. Its still in excellent condition after many, many hours of playing.

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http://www.youtube.com/guitarmike26

Free & Easy Down the Road I Go

Busy little fella.

Im actually looking for his posts, they're amusing me.

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Rated "M" for meaty.

I kinda agree with you Tochai, some trolls posts tend to be amusing.

shoddy construction and inconsistant quality control are a couple reasons, and the fact that they are overpriced, but the same can be said for other guitar makers too. roll the dice.

How so please point out the faults and examples of better construction methods. I'm sure we'd all like to benefit from your wisdom.

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No no and no

Man, I just gotta log back on to welcome The Ninja back from the Christmas break! Good to see ya round, guy!

G'night all - C

"Other guitar makers" like Ibanez and Gibson?

So they all suck?

If they are all overpriced how can any single one of them be overpriced? Sounds like you are saying they are all priced about right comparatively.

Pearls of wisdom coming from a 12 yr old.

I have a 2006 EJ no problem or on my Les Paul Custom.

My first Stratocaster, A 93 MIM Standard.. A great guitar I might add did in fact show fret wear, mainly on the so called cowboy frets. The wear wasn't bad enough to hamper any playing however. Sold that guitar just about 4 years back now and purchased a new Strat American Standard from an internet music store (2003). General apperance was good but it did have some problems in the neck pocket area. I contacted the place of purchase and was told that the dealer's tech always checks out and adjust there guitars before sending them to their customers and in fact the tech probably loosened the neck and shifted to the side to assure neck alignment with the stings and bridge and that would account for the space between the neck and body (made sence to me at the time)

My first string change, I loosened the neck and shoved it tightly against the body and began installing the strings... Sure enough there was an alignment problem as the high E sting was extreemly close to the edge of the fret board at the 12th fret.

I kept that guitar till 2008 (5 years) then also sold it. No noticable fret wear!

Went Gretsch and Rickenbacker for awhile and then just this year I purchased a new American Strat and it has it all over my previous Stats in tone and perfect neck alignment.. Not a single issue with it. Also have A HW-1 in perfect condition, Lite Ash in perfect condition, Squire thinline in perfect condition. All recent late models.

I suspect that Fender from time to time does have some quality issues and produces instruments in such vast quanities that quality control personnel are being pressed to the point of relaxing standard just to get the product out-the-door. Quality control inspectors are only human and of course many first time guitar buyers really don't know what to look for when making a purchase.

BTW, I bought what I thought was a quality LP Standard off ebay only to discover it had poor quality craftsmanship in the wood pattern and neck to body joint.

Fender does in fact build quality instruments but at times, less then perfect products do surface!

I have 11 strats and the only one that I've "burned" the frets off was my first 2000 MIM strat. I must admit that I played it a ton for four years before I got my second strat.

You're just mad because the Billy Goats Gruff jam Strats and the oldest knocked you off the bridge. Btw, where is that confounded bridge?

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10-4 good buddy, over and out!

Not to change the subject, but I just played "Stairway to Heaven" for the first time since seeing Waynes World.