If the bridge pickup in your CVC died, post here

[leetorrence]

Somebody else suggested this, but I'll start. Bought a new CVC from MF end of November (based on all the gushing about them here), bridge pickup died around the end of December.

Since it was within the 45 days, I returned it and MF sent me a new CVC. So far so good with the new one.

Love the guitar - and even the pickups, but seems like a number of tdpri members have experienced this problem. Let's get a count.

[Mightyaxeman]

Did you mess with it or the switch? Did you put a meter on it to check it out? Pickups don't usually die unless they are old or take a lot of abuse.

[Racer5]

Originally Posted by Mightyaxeman

Pickups don't usually die unless they are old or take a lot of abuse.

on the CVC apparently they do. lots of posts on this board about them crapping out.

[Mightyaxeman]

Originally Posted by Racer5

on the CVC apparently they do. lots of posts on this board about them crapping out.

I'd still like to know if it's the pickup or the switch?

[Joe D.]

Originally Posted by Mightyaxeman

Did you mess with it or the switch? Did you put a meter on it to check it out? Pickups don't usually die unless they are old or take a lot of abuse.

I'm the one who posted about the bridge pickup dying. I've seen posts about the neck pickups, but not the bridge.

I took it in for warranty repair. It's not the switch for sure, the tech checked that first.

I never heard of a pickup just dying like that. It worked one night and the very next night it was dead. I didn't take it out of the house or dropped it or anything like that. It went from playing to case back to playing it and it was dead.

Joe

[asatbender]

My bridge pickup never worked right even when I tried it out in the store. It sounded very thin and quiet and almost out of phasey sounding. The dealer said thats the way it shoud soun but i didnt agree. I took it to another dealer in next town and had a Rumpelstiltskin Black Rope installed and it is lovely. The neck pickup sounds fantastic as is. The repairman told me the old pickup had a very high reading and he thought the coil was broke or something.

[Racer5]

Originally Posted by asatbender

My bridge pickup never worked right even when I tried it out in the store. It sounded very thin and quiet and almost out of phasey sounding. The dealer said thats the way it shoud soun but i didnt agree. I took it to another dealer in next town and had a Rumpelstiltskin Black Rope installed and it is lovely. The neck pickup sounds fantastic as is. The repairman told me the old pickup had a very high reading and he thought the coil was broke or something.

Maybe one of the pup winders down in Indonesia or wherever is asleep at the wheel?

[Mark Davis]

The pickups are wound in China right across the room from Toneriders and they use all the same parts as toneriders just wound to different specs.

My CV50's has been working fine since July 2008 and my CVC also since 1-18-2010.

Most often its the switch not the pickup from my 45 years of experience with Fenders.

Another reason it might seem like alot are messed up is people always report when things mess up but dont say anything when its all working great.

There are probably 200-250 CVC owners here and I know for sure there are over 500 CV50's owners here.

When one forum has so many owners of a model you are bound to see more that fail just from the percentage of owners.

Log into a forum where there are only 25-50 CVC owners and your way less likely to see problems.

[cbnutt]

a friend of mine just got one, bridge pu died in a few days too, there is a problem with these evidentley.

[wannapickone]

I've had my CVC about a year.....Still waitin' for mine to "die" so I can replace with NoCasters........no luck......they are still "pickuping" right along!! And sounding mighty good tooooooooo !!
WPO

[Sollophonic]

I know we are talking about the Classic Vibe Custom (CVC) here, but there are also a few of us that have had the neck pickups in our Classic Vibe 50s (CV50s) go out on us too.

I dont think it is the switch. One of the first mods I made to my used one, was to change out the switch for an Oak style one, as I planned on having a series setting in the middle position.

At first the neck pickup was working, but rather dull sounding. When I wired it up to the new switch it sounded even worse, very little output at all.

Good thing the bridge pickup in these CV50s is a nice one, as the guitar makes a good Esquire

Funny that we are hearing about a few neck pickup problems in one guitar, and bridge pickup problems in another.

[leetorrence]

@mightyaxeman - I didn't put a meter on the pickup or check the switch itself. It's a good question. I can't say for sure if it was the pickup or the switch.

@mark - you're right that it's easy to overestimate the number of people having the problem. I thought this thread might give a more accurate count.

The CVC is just a fantastic guitar - and I never would have found out about it except for TDPRI.

In fact, I find it incredible that I can:

1. order a new guitar as fine as a CVC over the phone for around $350
2. have it delivered in 3 days
3. have it replaced at no charge within 45 days for any problem at all
4. have any question about it answered instantly for free by the TDPRI members

[cbnutt]

there are tons of 52ri owners here and american standards too, never seen a report of them going bad that much, Leetorrence, its a good idea to get a count here as to how many have crapped out, fender needs to be aware of it, add the 1 to the list my friend just bought, it didnt make it but a few days,

[CrisHendrix]

Originally Posted by cbnutt

there are tons of 52ri owners here and american standards too, never seen a report of them going bad that much, Leetorrence, its a good idea to get a count here as to how many have crapped out, fender needs to be aware of it, add the 1 to the list my friend just bought, it didnt make it but a few days,

Exactly, there's tons of Am Std & MIM owners (far more than the subset of Classic Vibe fanatics) but I've never heard any reports like this from them.. it really shouldn't be too surprising as these are cheap guitars manufactured in China. I really wouldn't sweat the electronics too much though, if you're happy with the body and neck swap out the pickups and get some decent pots in there

I don't know the sales figures of the Classic Vibe line but anecdotally at least when I go to Guitar Center I may see a total of 3-4 Classic Vibe guitars (1 or 2 of them being Tele) compared to at least 10-15 Tele's of MIM or American origin and too many Strats to count.. I really don't think this line is outselling the traditional lines, not to mention all the years the traditional lines have been on the market

[Thinlineggman]

Never had a problem with my CV thinline. I swap out ALL of the electronics other than the pickups pretty quickly (2 months after buying new) with new fender licensed parts. So I might have eliminated whatever problems that were pending:P

[Mark Davis]

There are more owners of CV50 Teles here than any other model.

A pickup is a very simple thing the only thing that can really kill one is to have an open coil.

The switch is so cheap on the CV's Id bet most of the problems are people slamming the switch back too hard.

One thing for sure is we havent seen that many dead or bad pickups on the CV50's or Thinline looks like its mostly on the CVC's.

Maybe they had a bad batch of pickups?

Why dont we do this everyone with a bad pickup on a CVC post their serial # or neck date.

If we can track this down maybe a bunch of CVC's got a bad batch of pickups that were installed on a certain day or week?

Another thing I noticed is when the CVC's first came out 1 year agp no one complained about a bad pickup it seems to be a recent thing thats just happened in the last month or so.

[Mark Davis]

Originally Posted by cbnutt

there are tons of 52ri owners here and american standards too, never seen a report of them going bad that much, Leetorrence, its a good idea to get a count here as to how many have crapped out, fender needs to be aware of it, add the 1 to the list my friend just bought, it didnt make it but a few days,

All the MIM's even the MIM std and USA made Teles come with the same good quality grisgby or crl switch.

The CV's come with the cheapest switch and jack you can buy its not high quality really cheaply made.

[ASC67]

My CV 50's had an open coil on the bridge pickup, replaced it with another one that I bought from a forum member and it's been fine so far.

[Guitar Rat]

I tried out a CV50s at my GC last week, apparently just minutes after another guy in his 40s had finished noodling some blues lines with it.

The bridge pickup was dead. Had he been manhandling the guitar (and thereby beating on the switch)? No, according to the stunned salesman. That really gives me a lot of faith in this line--when I buy something, I only buy it once, not once and then once again to fix things/upgrade.

I'll stick to the MIMs and MIAs, thanks.

[mellecaster]

This may make a few of you feel some better ?....Over the years I have purchased many NIB (that's New in Box) Pickup Sets from Fender...Custom Shop..etc for various projects and Builds for Customers, and especially on a Set of unopened Strat Pups, it is not uncommon to find a Dead one that will not Test...90% of the time the eyelet connection needs to be reflowed w/ fresh Solder...much easier for me to do than return the whole Set...Stuff happens.