Fender make good basses but at some points in time, their instruments were agreeably-worse. As an example, the 2003-2007 "S-1" models are quite frankly poop.
What other years were generally bad for Fender basses?
The only problem with the "S-1" basses is the poor execution of the S-1 switch. The instruments were OK.
This is a huge area of disagreement, always has been, and always will be. I'm one of the ones who find the market value of mid '70s Fender products to be far in excess of what most of the instruments seem to have as intrinsic value. I was a Fender dealer from 1977-1988 and while the absolute best Stratocaster I've ever played was a ca. 1979 hard-tail, most of the product we got had so many issues that they were at best mediocre. This does not in any way mean that "all" were junk. Not even that most were junk, they just weren't all that great either.
If you're talking about a specific chunk of wood and metal that you have your hands on right now, then generalities are meaningless. But based on the large number of instruments I've seen myself (played, sold, worked on, modded, fixed, tried to turn into silk purses, etc.), stuff between about 1972 and 1982 is highly suspect. Some things are purely subjective- blocks 'n' binding, the wider spacing of Jazz bass PUPs, the characteristic neck shapes, etc. But some are very objective- the inconsistent neck/body alignments, the big variance in pickup sound, the poor execution of the Micro-Tilt neck (the 3-bolt neck is NOT inherently bad, but the way Fender made them leads to problems), the huge amounts of rubbing compound left in the bodies to destroy the pots and switches, the hit-or-miss level of fret work, the thick finish in the neck joints, etc.
So even though I don't like '70s Fenders, I'm only going to judge instruments on their individual merits. That simply means I don't buy basses or guitars without playing them first.
John
