Rickenbacker quality control?

[cb4]

I recently bought my first Rickenbacker 4003 JetGlo 2021 this past June. I soon discovered that the neck was defective. There was a bump on the first fret. Repairing would have been costly. It was still under warranty so I sent it back. They’re sending me a new one. It can take as long as a year to get a Ricki here in Canada. If the next one is defective then the dream is over. Has anyone had quality control issues with Rickenbacker? Has the company gone down the same road as Gibson… riding on their name.. playing with house money?
I was warned by a very reputable luthier that they may not be letting their wood dry long enough. Thank you for any info you can share. I guess I expected perfection for $3000! Hopefully it was a rare lemon.

 

[bobyoung53]

I recently bought my first Rickenbacker 4003 JetGlo 2021 this past June. I soon discovered that the neck was defective. There was a bump on the first fret. Repairing would have been costly. It was still under warranty so I sent it back. They’re sending me a new one. It can take as long as a year to get a Ricki here in Canada. If the next one is defective then the dream is over. Has anyone had quality control issues with Rickenbacker? Has the company gone down the same road as Gibson… riding on their name.. playing with house money?
I was warned by a very reputable luthier that they may not be letting their wood dry long enough. Thank you for any info you can share. I guess I expected perfection for $3000! Hopefully it was a rare lemon.

I bought a new 4003S last year i's very nice and bought two new Gibson T-Birds within the past 5 years and they were both perfect, sorry for your problem but that is not the norm for Rickenbacker, I've owned a lot of them over the years, mostly bought used and never found a problem I couldn't fix with set up. Gibson is making excellent instruments, so is Ric.

 

[sloppy_phil]

There are quite a few things one can point one's finger at with RIC, but from what I've been able to tell, QC recently has not been one of them. The last big regular issue with their QC was back when their UV finishes weren't curing properly, and were prone to some bad, bad cracking around the bridges. That was sorted back in 2015-16 or so, and most of the basses ending up in peoples' hands are being reported as very well made.

I think you got a weird lemon, so hopefully the next one is fine. Where are you ordering from, btw? A year seems like a lengthy wait

 

[Warpeg]

I've had five Rics over the years. None of them had QC issues.