Bridge Pickup in New Thinline Squire Bridge Pickup Not Working

Hi Guys and Gals,

Rather than hijack a previous post of someone else's about this issue, I figured I'd start my own. So...

Out of the box, my new Squier Classic Vibe Tele Thinline looks amazing. Neck pickup works and sounds in the neck position and middle position. No sound coming from the bridge pickup. Here's what I've done so far:


Checked for loose cables. Everything looks good
Checked for bad solder joints on pickups, switch, knobs and output jack. Looks OK... I redid a couple just to correct what looks like cold solder
Checked the ground wires. They all look good.
Un-soldered the hot lead from the switch and connected directly to the output jack (Seymour Duncan recommended that). Nothing different.
Connected the hot lead from the switch to the neck position portion of the switch. Nothing different.
Unsoldered the ground wire from the volume pot and connected to the output jack ground. Nothing different.
Turned the amp way up, and adjusted the pickup to right-close to touching the string. Nothing.


The weird thing is, I can tap on the poles of the bridge pickup with the head of a screw and hear it coming through the amp just fine. So there is something making it's way down the output jack.

Any gurus have any insights?

Thanks so much!

OK. So, an update. I popped in a Texas Special bridge pickup from one of my Strats. It worked. I took the original bridge pickup completely out and used the known good wires on the Texas Special.

Interestingly, once I re-soldered the old pickup back in place, I can no longer hear the tapping noise coming through using a screw head.

Can you take a resistance reading on the pup ? It must be junk.


You should get 5.8 - 6 KΩ.


HNGD anyway, I have a CV TL and LOVE IT !!!!!!!

Mine was running at about 1/2 output right out of the box. (Put in a Golden Vintage, sounds good!) My month-old CV Blonde bridge just quit entirely. I'm sensing a pattern here...

my new Squier Classic Vibe Tele Thinline

Take it back, get a replacement.

I bought it as a 'scratch n dent' and I suspect that the non-functioning pickup was the 'dent'. In any case, it was 100 bucks cheaper than a regular one, so after I determined that it is indeed the pickup, I just popped for a replacement for $25 bones.

Given the reviews I've read on the stock pickups, I think that's a good place to start. If I hate it, well, my soldering iron is still warm and ready to plug something else in. :)

Out of curiosity sjtalon, what would I expect to see from a dead/dying pup? I don't have a meter, but would definitely pick one up just to satisfy my curiosity about why this thing isn't working.

A very low resistance or nothing at all.

Could be just a bad solder joint in the eyelet bobbin. That's where the leads to ground and the switch are.

UPDATE: So I ordered a replacement for $20 bones on eBay. It came in, I wired it up and it works great. Visually inspecting the faulty pickup doesn't really reveal anything to me, but then again, I don't really know what to look for. I wasn't brave enough to pull the wrapping off the coil, but I might do it and chalk it up to education costs.

If the pickup doesn't work, then it doesn't work. The worst you can do is make it not work even harder. You should be able to see the tiny little wires coming from the coil to the eyelets, though, without opening it up.

I would:
1) Check resistance at the wires (where you connect to the pot and switch). If you don't have good resistance there, you know it is the pickup. In your case, you already know it was the pickup (because a new one worked fine)
2) Check resistance across the eyelets. If you don't have a good resistance there (you may read open, you may read zero resistance, or you might get anything in between) then you know the problem is either with the coil or with the connection at the eyelets. If this reads fine, then it was the connecting wires, you should be able to swap these. If it doesn't, I would try reflowing the solder at the eyelets. Let your iron get REALLY hot and touch to the eyelets a little longer than it takes for the solder to go molten. This SHOULD burn through any insulating coating on the wire and get a good connection. If that doesn't work (after a few tries) you know it is the coil.

If it is the coil, you might as well open it up. At very worst, you will make it irreparable. At best, you will learn something.

You're not the first to have had a problem with a Squier CV pickup. Most of those problems have come from the bridge pickup however mine was a neck pickup. You may still get some sound out of it as I did with mine but the output is very low and the pickup should be replaced which you have already done.

Fender Customer Service won't freely admit that they have a problem there but they know they do. From what I learned a vendor was not following the specs for material and assembly so any number of them may have been installed in Squiers using Alnico V's before they realized it. They say they've now corrected the problem.

They should be willing to replace it as a defective part if get to the right person to authorize it. If you get them to replace it at least you'll have one to sell if you like to offset your costs for the new one.

Every once in a while every manufacturer experiences a problem like this. But in no way should it detract from what is ordinarily a great guitar.