The previous thread about guitar shops and how people are treated has motivated me to tell what happened to me.I recently purchased a guitar from a dealer online and feel lucky to have an exceptional instrument.But it needed a slight adjustment to raise the action.So I drove 90 miles to the nearest Collings dealer( they advertise themselves as the biggest Collings dealer in the world)and was told that since I did not buy the guitar from them would not work on my guitar.Well let me tell you I wa s very disappointed and angry.Spend 5K on a guitar and not be able to get it serviced is bad for business and reputation.Well after a fair amount of whining and vigerous discussions the repair tech took the guitar and did the adjustment,all of 15 MINTUES!!I don't know how you guys feel about this but if I were BC I would have a serious discussion with my dealer network about servicing his guiters.I have owned 9 of them and feel I should be treated better.

That doesn't sound like a way to get you to buy your next Collings there. And if they don't cut that out, they won't be the largest Collings dealer in the world for long!

That's bad PR, but I can understand their position. You chose to order online instead of supporting a local dealer, and then wanted service from the local dealer. As a PR gesture, I might have just adjusted the action, but all the while thinking you should have bought the guitar where you can get service. That's part of the value of dealing with local dealers. The fact that the online dealer sent you a guitar in need of adjustment was not mentioned. Weird! They should have been the responsible party.

Action (lowering or raising) adjustments are usually a personal preference unless it was out-of-whack to begin with. That may be why nothing was mentioned during the sale.

As for the store not wanting to do the adjustment in the beginning, to me that's a store issue. They may have reacted the same way if you brought a different brand guitar that you did not buy there. Anyway, the other factor may have been an issue on whether they would have to charge you for the adjustment or not. Did they?

I'm not sure if this particular problem would require BC's (or someone from the shop) intervention/action.

Just my thoughts.

Ace
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Let me get this straight you spend several thousand dollars on a guitar and just because I bought it from a BETTER Source then them,they have no obligation to support the product they sell? This place has as large a footprint on the web as anyone They wanna charge me, got no problem with that but to just outright refuse is Bullshit!I don't support local guys who screw me.It's not the 1st time I have had problems with this outfit but it certainly will be the last.

To me this issue is simple. The local store where I shop does all setup work for free if you buy the guitar there. If not, they charge you the normal rate and de-prioritize the work, choosing to work on guitars bought there first.

They have a sign on the counter that says "Due to high volume of repair work, we are only working on guitars sold here at this time." If you're a customer, they'll work with you on it.

Bottom line, they have to support their customers first. Then they support other stores' customers and do repair work on all kinds of guitars. It's just a question of proper prioritization. Not doing the work (as in your case) seems dumb to me--a dealer can't frustrate someone into buying from them.

Wierd, to say the least. I know if I wanted to bring a Collings bought out of state to Gryphon (a BIG Collings dealer), they'd do any needed set up work, but of course, you'd need to pay for that service. My practice has been to take guitars bought out of state to Eric Schoenberg's shop, and they do great set up work for a reasonable charge.

I am sorry Walt but if you bought this guitar online, you should not expect this other shop to provide free non-warranty service. Also sounds like you didn't call them ahead of time to setup an appointment for the repair. If its a good repair shop the luthier is probably buried and even if you are a customer you just can't walk in and get taken care of. Think about it, if this is non-warranty service who do they charge for their work? Also in case I've made some assumptions here that are wrong, I apologize ahead of time.

quote:

you should not expect this other shop to provide free non-warranty service.

I don't believe that was his point. He stated he was willing to pay for the service.

You make an excellent point about calling ahead for an appointment.

It's also an excellent point that if you didn't buy the guitar at that shop, you can't expect that shop to drop everything and take you first in line, even when the set up work would only take 15 minutes.

Walt, Im not surprised that you've gotten little sympathy on this issue. It appears that you feel that Colling dealer network should be run like an auto dealership. Were that the case you would surely have made an appointment and the dealer would have been compensated for their work.Had you bought the guitar from them in the first place I bet you would have left the shop with it setup to your satisfaction.Instead you chose to trash them a bit for what appears to be a perfectly reasonable action on their part. I know that you didn't mentioned them by name but you might as well have for all the info that you provided. Too bad we can't get the story from their point of view.

The owners of my place of employment have brought this discussion to my attention. I am not accustomed to being as angered as I am now about this thread.
To eliminate any confusion allow me to say that I am the repairman referred to in this discussion. I don’t believe I have posted to this forum before although being the repairman for Collings #1 dealer I have probably worked on more of these fine instruments than anyone outside of Austin, Texas. I take great pride in my work and feel lucky to work within such a fine establishment.
It was on a Saturday, our busiest day that Walter came to our store asking to have his guitar serviced. At the time I had a large repair backlog and a message on our website stating that we were temporarily not taking in new repair work. I came upstairs from my workshop to speak with Walter and let him know about our policy so the “fair amount of whining and vigorous discussions” must be attributed to me. It is true that I attempted to dissuade Walter from dropping off his guitars for service at the time. I asked him if he had called first. I asked this because we often make exceptions for our customers and I needed to know if one of the staff had given him an okay. No. I asked if he had looked at our website to check for notices about repair work. No – but I understand that’s a stretch, I wouldn’t have gone that far either. It is a difficult line to draw – as any repairman knows. I hate being in that situation. I agreed to take care of his needs.
Walter was asking for just a tweak – only take you a minute. Actually he wasn’t asking at all. It was his expectation. It did need a truss rod adjustment but his guitar was also dry and I saw that a little extra work would bring the guitar around and hopefully bring the situation to a happy conclusion. I’d say fifteen minutes is a low estimate but the time I spent was less than half an hour – and half an hour on our showroom floor is a very pleasant time for any guitar aficionado. I brought Walter’s guitar back to him and was relieved to see him smiling and very pleased with the results of my work. Because I felt Walter’s expectations were not well met I decided not to charge him for the service hoping that we could still have a positive relationship with him in the future.
Walter, as you were leaving you said that you would call Collings and tell them what great service you had received. I must say I am shocked to read your words.
Whining sir?