I just bought a new Billy Corgan Strat at a good price (I think) and the pickup in the neck position wasn't working properly. I thought it might be the switch, a bad connection or something. It turns out the pickup in the neck position is bad. The shop said it would take about a week to 10 days for them to get the pickup and get it ready.

My questions are:
Do these pickups tend to have this problem? Is it a design flaw or simply that one that got by QA? Does this signal a lemon? Should I take this guitar back and get something else.

I'm a keyboard guy and don't have a lot of experience with guitars so pardon the newbe questions.

Thanks,

BB

The cool thing about an electric guitar, particularly a Fender, compared to a keyboard is the guitar is very modular. Replacing a pickup is relatively easy for someone who can handle a soldering iron (which I unfortunately can't so I have to pay someone to do things like this ); it's not like messing with a logic board inside a digital synth or something like that. I've never heard of any problems with these pickups (they are made by DiMarzio for this model, not by Fender); it could be one of 3 things:

1. Fender got a bad pickup from DiMarzio and it slipped through QC;

2. The guitar was bounced just right in shipping causing the pickup issue; or

3. Something happened at the store that caused the pickup issue (of course this assumes it was hanging on the wall for anyone to play before you bought it).