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Rickenbacker in...

dumbdrum

dumbdrum

Sep 19, 2006
269
0
NorCal
#1
...and Rickenbacker out.

Well my 4003 arrived Friday. My first bit of elation turned to dissapointment. :crying: There is a grounding hum which goes away when I touch metal, there are minor finish flaws, the mute doesn't engage fully on the E string, the action is only medium with the bridge bottomed out, the nut slot on the g string is about a 16th higher than the other strings, and the pickguard doesn't even fit (either the screw locations or the holes in the pickguard are forcing the pickguard to bow upwards).

All these issues I wouldn't expect from Ric (by reputation) and I certainly don't think I should have to fix those things after spending $1000+. My Ibanez has better fit, finish, and playability than this .:rollno:.

I am returning it (no shipping charges) and am being placed back on the backorder log. The reputation of the consistency and quality of their instruments is one of the best. I am really hoping that I just got a bad one.
 
#4
That sucks, sorry about your luck. I was tempted to get mine from MF too because I thought they'd probably be one of the first retailers to get them back in stock, but since I don't have the confidence to adjust a Ric myself so I bought mine from The Ric Page. When they get a new instrument they give it a complete setup before sending it to its new owner. I haven't gotten mine yet, but I'm hoping it'll be a '10' out of the box.

Those fit and finish issues sure are questionable though, that's very un-Ric-like.
 
#6
Well I got mine from MF with minor setup issues but I had to ship it in to Ric for a different reason (anyone remember the batch off Mid Blue fading?) and came back with an A+ awesome set up.

Not sure if MF has anything to do with this but I agree is uncharacteristic of ric.
 
#7
I can't prove it, but my understanding is MF just ships them out without doing anything to them. But if that's the case, you're basically getting it shipped to you directly from Ric but via MF, so any issues with fit, finish, setup, or poorly fitting pickguards would be Ric's fault.

Sure doesn't sound like Ric though, that's odd.
 
#8
I have heard of finish flaws being an occasional problem, but never any problems besides that. Odd.

I bought mine second hand from Craigslist. I made the guy send me loads of pictures of anywhere on the bass before I payed. The only problems were 3 chips around the binding (2 on the front, and 1 on the back), but black fingernail polish made these hard to notice unless you get within 1' from my bass. The finish was a bit sloppy where the neck goes in, I am assuming this happened at the factory.. but the bass is second hand made in '98 so I can't be sure.

I hope you have better luck with the next one. And, as for being placed back on the backorder, a Rick is well worth the wait.
 
#10
Yeah, It was shipped from Ric via MF. The box was factory sealed so it definitely left Ric that way. I am comfortable doing my own setups so I wasn't really worried about that. The grounding hum, and pickguard bow were so obvious that they should have been caught by someone especially the one installing the pickguard. I have never heard anything bad from Ric as far as QC goes so I'm really hoping this was just a freak occurance.

On another note, anyone have a Ric with really low action without having to file the saddles down? I want to know if the when the bridge is bottomed out is normal.
 

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