I've had several Fenders that were utter pieces of junk, two were late model American made, and I have played many more that were equally bad. I currently had a 55-02 and it is, without a doubt superbly built and, honestly, better than many USA Fender basses I have played. Of course. with all of that being said YMMV, anecdotal evidence is not always reliable and confirmation bias will creep into any opinionated conversation.
I'm sure Lakland customer service would have taken care of you, BTW. It is excellent and if I may say, light years better than any time I have dealt with Fender (YMMV, etc.)
). The build quality is incredible. I'm in the process of ordering a Hipshot D-tuner for it so I can turn it into the kid brother of my Sadowsky Metro Will Lee. I would rank the feel of the back of the Lakland necks as second only to Music Man oil/wax as far as my favorite. I used to also own a MiK Skyline 55-02 twice, and that was a nice instrument, too. I've tried several Indo Skylines, and while I won't say they're worse than MiK, I haven't tried one that I would rate as superior. I was flirting with the idea of grabbing another 5-string, but one of the 55-02s I saw in the shop had the A-string so far to one side, either the neck needed a major tweak or the bridge was mounted incorrectly. (it was a '12, and there's a thread here about a similar '12. maybe there was a bad batch that year.) Since then, the shop has gotten a few others in that are better, but I've decided to stick with drop-D 4s for now. 
