New Fender rant ...

Got my hands on some new Fender's yesterday while travelling. A Classic 70's J Bass and Road Worn P. The setups were typically retail bad. OK - I can look beyond that. Neither had a decently tight neck pocket, the hardware install was sloppy, screws on odd angles. Bad string to pickup alignment on the J ... simply pathetic. Not remotely close to the level of fit and finish I see in the G&L Tribute line.

The worst Fender's I've played in a long, long time... I've played some recent MIA stuff and owned a couple as recent as 2002 and 2006. The 06 was better fit and finish that the 02 - not one of those 3 I tried yesterday was even close. What Fender is thinking selling crap like that at those prices is beyind my comprehension.

The scariest thing - there was a blue Squire 51P type sitting there and that one smoked 'em ...

Oh dear that's not good.........

Got to say that the BAJA Tele I picked up a couple of weeks ago is wonderful, everything fitted correctly and decent setup into the bargin.....

That's odd . . . I had just the opposite reaction! After playing several high $$$ other brand basses, I finally got to play some newer Fenders - all 5 strings. I thought that they were incredible . . . more so than the higher $$$ ones.

I really, really like the new MIA Fenders.

The Squiers felt like they were worth half of what they retail for . . . sorry Squier owners . . . that's just my 2 (ents!

I think the new MIA Fender's are fine instruments. The last I had was a 2006 MIA Deluxe P. Fabulous player but ... tonally not me. Just too midrange forward with that Monster magnet of two J's in series at the bridge. The neck was seriously sweet though. The 02 MIA Deluxe J I traded for it was also a great bass.

The Road Worn and the 70's I played were not in the same league ...

Neither had a decently tight neck pocket
A proper neck pocket should not be laterally tight. It should have enough clearance for differential expansion and contraction of the neck and body and to accomodate centerline alignment in the build. The important fit is at the face of the neck.

Fender designers argued with buyers about this for years (and correctly), but they kept yammering for it so Fender gave it to them. The result is a lot of eventually cracked paint around pockets where the neck is an interference fit and overall misalignments elsewhere on the instrument.

That said, the Ensenada output has always been atrocious as a rule, frequently shipping some of the worst-built instruments I have seen from any source. This is due to a seriously flawed worker production quota policy that is guaranteed to produce poor product (the notorious "Friday Fender") -- but lousy Mexican QC is a decision made by Fender. They could tighten it up tomorrow if they were motivated. They're not. Bad MIM product makes MIA product look better. People still buy MIM stuff for some reason and quality in excess of consumer expectation is waste.
The scariest thing - there was a blue Squire 51P type sitting there and that one smoked 'em ...
Sure. It was probably made by Cor-Tek, who actually know how to make instruments.

Agreed on the neck pocket though I've had some G&L's that were so tight as to be near solid - that didn't experience any issues over long period of time. When I do a franken that includes shaping the heel of the neck, I aim at about 1/32 around each of the 2sides and snug up front. The Fender's I mentioned above were way off that...

Cor-tek - are those the folks that do Lakland Skyline ? Is that Cort ? Those guy's do know hw to turn out good stuff. I believe that they were the Korean builder of the original G&L trib line - great stuff. The Tributes got better yet when production was moved to Indonesia of all places... Not sure who the factory is there. The tribute instruments are an amazing value IMO.