my lousy experience with 30th St Guitars

Everyone makes mistakes -- often the difference between a good repair shop and a bad one is how they treat the customer when the shop makes a mistake.

I brought a Tele with Kinman "noiseless" pickups into 30th St guitars for a new toggle switch. It wasn't urgent, there was just a little crackle when switching. The pickups are about 2 years old and have indeed been free of hum since they day I installed them. I recommend them highly.

When I picked up my guitar from 30th St, the new toggle switch was in, but the guitar had noticable single-coil hum. I heard this in the store, and even brought it home and to my practice space to make sure. I went back to the shop a couple days later and was told that the repair tech/owner was out for a week, but that they had another tech coming in the next day to cover. So I left the guitar with them and came back a couple of days later.

To my surprise, tech #2 said he couldn't hear any hum and even said he'd stake his reputation on it. We plugged it in and, sure enough, there was plenty of hum and tech #2 looked embarrassed while the guy behind the counter laughed at him and his "reputation." This was all very amusing except that I'd wasted my time going back and forth and my guitar was worse than when I'd brought it in. Tech #2 advised me to come back when tech #1, the owner, was back the following week.

Today, as instructed, I went back and saw Matt, the owner, tech #1, the expert. He said there was no way anything he did could have caused the problem. I pointed out that the guitar was whisper quiet until I left it at his shop, but he denied any responsibility, though he was at a loss to explain what was wrong. I protested that I had been back and forth 4 times, and was frustrated that the other tech initially denied even hearing the hum. His response was that he was away so couldn't answer for what transpired. Nor did he offer to put the guitar on his bench and troubleshoot. Instead he said "it wasn't me" and that something was wrong with the pickups.

Here's my point: whatever happened, it happened on his watch -- he's the owner and "I'm not accountable for what happened while I was away" doesn't cut it. While he was more than willing to cite his own expertise to justify his lack of responsibility, he apparently didn't have enough confidence to try and fix the problem. He was so caught up in denying that it was his (or his employees') fault, he made no offer to repair the guitar, or even explain the remarkable coincidence that my pickups started humming exactly when he worked on the guitar.

At that point I said I would bring it someplace else and that I wanted my money back for the toggle switch repair. He had the incredible chutzpah to say, "Ok, then give me back the toggle switch and I'll put your old one back in." What nerve, after all the runaround I got from his shop, to ask for his $10 switch back.

I forget exactly what expletive I uttered at that point, but Matt was unwilling to discuss it further after that. I guess that's where he draws the line -- I guess it's fine for his shop to give me my guitar worse than when it came in, and it's fine for him to offer no recourse, and it's fine for him to nickel and dime a customer who has come back again and again in good faith; but heaven forbid the customer should lose his temper and swear in frustration.

Way to step up, 30th St Guitars.

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