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*Official* MF MID Rickenbacker Sale thread

How Satisfied Are You With Your New Rick?

  • Very Satisfied

    Votes: 47 45.6%
  • Satisfied

    Votes: 18 17.5%
  • Neutral

    Votes: 19 18.4%
  • Unsatisfied

    Votes: 7 6.8%
  • Very Unsatisified

    Votes: 12 11.7%

  • Total voters
    103
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And the nut is seated just fine.
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Really? This is prompting me to look a mine a bit closer.
 

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Edit: Nevermind, found the coupon.

I'm in! Just placed my order. I've followed the entire thread, I know there have been QC issues. But for $1000 and given MF's return policies, I'm more than willing to take the chance. The fact that I don't have to spend the money for a few months (I'm going through an expensive move) makes this a great deal for me.:)
 
Ok, I've made up my mind and I'm ready to vote in the poll.....

I'm keeping mine, but I'm voting "neutral." I've wanted a RIC for many, many years, but I've always found some way to talk myself out of them. I love the way mine sounds, feels and looks. It will need a professional setup in order to achieve the same setup I have on all my other basses (none of which, BTW, have needed a professional setup.) The paint issue is a bit frustrating, but I may ultimately decide to let RIC fix it if I decide it bothers me too much. Kudos to them for being willing to step up and completely refinish an instrument with such a minor problem.

So, why neutral? I'm disappointed by the level of QC on what is supposed to be a $1900 instrument. The high frets should have been caught in the factory, as well as the paint. It leaves me with the impression that RIC is rushing to fill orders (since they have such a backlog) and just dealing with these issues if the end user complains. It's great that they are willing to fix them, but they really shouldn't be letting them out in this condition. And, given the number of posters here that had issues (relative to our sample size), I'm fairly confident that this problem isn't isolated to a few basses. In the end, despite the disappointing finish and QC, I'm happy relative to the price I ultimately paid for the bass. With a little TLC, this should be one of my most favorite basses in my stable.
 
By the time I get mine this poll will be forgotten. But I have owned a lot of Rics and worked on a lot more. A Rickenbacker lemon is a very rare item indeed. So I will probably vote positive, and if I don't like it I will simply send it back.
 
I am voting satisfied. The reason , the first bass was a joke. Honestly when i got the first bass I wondered why rick didnt just make there basses in Korea, at the cort factory or something and charge around 900$, I get that we'd lose american jobs , but if they push that stuff out, they need to find a new trade.

Then i had to go through the hassel to get the 2nd one , which i adore. Its 100% perfect and what every rick should look like except there is minoring bubbling on the chrome bridge, which could have happend after it left the factory so i wont hang it over there heads. I maybe getting a hold of rick about sending me a new bridge if it starts to bug me. This is a bass that I see is worth the new price they can be had at 1500-1600$ , 1949$? no but i paid 1169$ so I am a happy dude.

Anyways If the 2nd one was the first one i got it would be very satisfied but since i had to deal with a rick that looked like a april fools joke , its just satisfied.




Guess what ??? MF gets a very satisfied mark in my book, always been awesome people to me.
 
Personally, I'd be hesitant to allow them to do this type of work. It's good that they are willing to fix it, but a complete refinish is a complicated job and who knows what you'll end up with in the end......

So you would be hesitant to let the manufacture who built the bass, the opportunity to make it right? I believe that Rickenbacker could handle a refinish.
 
After seeing some of the flaws (like the nut photo a few posts above) I took a much more detailed look at mine. Nothing major, but still some QC issues.

The nut on the E side of mine is glued to the fingerboard, and not seated against the headstock. This may be normal for Ric, but the gap in mine is big enough to fit the tip of a Herco gold pick on the E side. There is also the tiniest pinpoint that appears to possibly have been touched up (mine came in a sealed Ric box, unopened). The nut is also too wide at the bass and overhangs the neck on both the E and G sides, more on the E side.

Also, the bridge pickup plate lifts up in the middle on the E side as well.

Overall I'm satisfied, but it seems the QC needs some attention.

See attached images.
 

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So you would be hesitant to let the manufacture who built the bass, the opportunity to make it right? I believe that Rickenbacker could handle a refinish.

Well, I'd like to believe they could handle a "finish", but that didn't exactly play out, huh?

As a teen, I worked in a furniture store that did both finishing of new furniture, as well as refinishing of older furniture. Putting the new finish on is the easy part, it's removing the old finish (correctly) that gets difficult. Unless the person doing the work is skilled at stripping the old finish, there are many ways to do it wrong and damage the instrument.

Refinishing an entire instrument to fix one minor problem is a pretty drastic step. If my issue gets worse over the next few months, I'll let them take a stab at fixing it. If it remains stable, then I'll probably ignore it.
 
Well, my replacement bass came today by rush shipping, but after promising to double box and pack it well MF shipped it in the factory RIC box like the first one. I would not have been too disappointed if all was OK.

The box is beat up and the case is cracked at 2 of the feet.

The person stapling the box ends together at RIC punched 2 small holes in the end of the case.

Not a happy camper. More pics and rant to come.
 
I called MF and the nice customer service person looked up the replacement order history and sure enough, it included the offer of double boxing and packing well with next day shipping.

He apologized for the error and we had a "chuckle" about this same type of damage happening twice. He got the OK from his manager to send me a Vintage Case 94550 at no charge and I get to keep the damaged case. I asked him if the new case would be packed better and he said "I sure hope so."

He was a little confused when he saw I ordered another one of the same bass today with the great 15% discount and made sure that wasn't a replacement for the damaged one. I asked him to add a note to double box on the next RIC, which he kindly did.

Pics of the box and staple holes.
 
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