I bought and retured two American Standard Strat in the last month. The first one had a problem with a misalined hole in the Bridge. The Tremolo arm would not screw into the block properly. On the second one a thought everything was great untill I started playing. It had what I call String Buzz on the low E string but only on the 10th fret. I'm assuming it was caused by the 11th fret having a high spot on it. All other frets on all other strings were ok. I thought about taking it to a tech but when I pay 1,100.00 for a guitar I expect it to be 100%. Am I wrong to execpt a perfict guitar, is it common to have these type of problems on new guitars. Anyone else had this type of experience. I thinking about ordering an American Deluxe Maybe the QA to better on them. PS. they were purchased online.

i wouldnt say that bad fret leveling on new fenders are common but from my personal experience, about 5-10% of new fenders ive played could do with a fret dressing or leveling, of my own experience, ive had one perfect strat, a perfect tele and one strat where anything above 12 is unusable, but since i do a lot of work on guitars, doing a fret dressing is no problem,

i wouldnt have taken it back because of a raised fret, but i can understand where you comeing from, u expect the instrument to be playable atleast...

as for ordering off the net, thats jist the risk you take not beeing able to play it first, but i say if it feels good and sounds good keep it, raised frets or not...

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blues - its a religion...

I already returned it. I quess I will reorder when I get the credit back on my Card. Hope for better luck on the next one!

I don't know about returning the guitar. Raising the string height just a touch could have made all the difference. Guitars are made in factories, and in cookie cutter fashion. Although the consistency in overall quality is better today then years past. Money doesn't buy playability, it just buys bling, prestige, and sometimes better tone and better quality materials. In my experience, nearly every new guitar can use either a tweak in setup, or a little extra attention to the fretwork.

I order all my Guitars through the same shop. Everytime a new Guitar comes in, there will be some minor adjustments that need to be made. These have ranged from Gibson Les Pauls to American Deluxe Teles. At the end of the day, you have little control over the environments that Guitars get shipped through. Between the factory and the retailer, anything can happen in terms of environment and temperature. It's always been worthwhile to have the instrument set up perfectly before I pay for it.

I think you were a bit premature in sending the second Guitar back when it may have only required a small adjustment that would have cost very little.

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2012 Fender American Standard Stratocaster
2013 Fender Pure Vintage 65 Stratocaster
2003 Gibson ES-355
2015 Gibson Les Paul Traditional
2002 Gretsch Duo Jet
1980 Rickenbacker 360/12 Fireglo
2014 Martin 000X1AE
2014 Fender Blues Junior III

I am a firm believer that no matter how well made an assembly line guitar may be, ultimately, it still needs the 'human touch' to make it just right for the receiving human.

As always, this is merely IMO where YMMV.

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