Building custom guitars since 1951 of all styles in New Mexico USA . our Company has being awarded the NM Governors award , the blue chip enterprize award, Acoustic guitar 2000 Players choice award etc. has being selected to demonstrate quality Handmade guitars at the Smithsonian in Wa. We have represented New Mexico in Nashville Tn. through The ACVB . The company was started by Lorenzo Pimentel. Music instruction to all age groups, entertainment of all styles of music, Tours , a true Family tradition Father and 5 Sons building and performing , contact Rick or Robert Pimentel ..
1 thought on “Pimentel & Sons Guitar Makers”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
First – you should know that Pimentel Guitars of Albquerque apparently has a No Refunds rule. If you’re OK with that, fine. I’m not OK with that – especially after what happened to me at their hands. Also please understand that I am a former NBC News Anchor and CBS News Reporter, Newswriter and Producer, trained in telling the truth.
To make my victimization at the hands of Pimentel Guitars more clear to you, here’s an analogy:
Imagine going to a pizzeria at which you order a small pizza. You tell the owner you are deathly allergic to tomato sauce. You add that you liked a thin crust and pesto sauce.
Since you liked that thin crusted pesto pizza, you go back the next week, ordering 10 such large pizzas for a party the following Friday. You tell the owner to make the pizzas as he had before, and he assures you he remembers you and your special needs. He makes you pay in advance.
On Friday, you go to pick up the pizzas for your party but they’ve not been made. No apologies are given. Instead they say they’ll send the pizzas within a few months.
NO!, you protest. The pizzas were needed for that day, for your party, which they’ve now ruined, because you’ll have nothing to serve your guests. You demand a refund but the owner says “Sorry, this was a custom order and we don’t give refunds for custom orders.”
Three months later – long after the party for which the pizzas were ordered had occurred – 10 pizzas are delivered to your house. And all have tomato sauce on them – which you told the owner you were deathly allergic to. And they’re SUPER thick – the crust in fact is a half a FOOT thick (you measure it) and you could never get your mouth around it even if you wanted to. You’ve never SEEN a pizza that thick.
So you call to complain, but the owner says, “sorry, but you ordered Large pizzas, and they come STANDARD with tomato sauce and a thick crust!”
But you protest, reminding the owner you’d told him, in making the small pizza, what your needs and desires were.
“But that was for a small pizza,” he replies, “which is very different from a large pie. And my customers love that thick crust! I have videos of several eating one!”
He then offers this solution: “Send the pizzas back and we’ll SCRAPE OFF the tomato sauce you’re allergic to and SAW DOWN the crust so it’s thinner! Or we can make you new pizzas in three months!”
This is unacceptable and so you again demand a refund but the owner says, “We’re very sorry – no refunds for custom orders!”
THAT’S akin to my experience with Pimentel Guitars of Albuquerque.
They’d failed to deliver an acceptable guitar by the contracted deadline of Feb. 24 (to be available for an album I was recording) and when the guitar finally arrived on May 4, it was an unplayable lemon (and it arrived after the recording project I’d ordered it for was done). It had the fattest neck I’d ever seen and super wide fretboard (2.5″! – I measured it), making playing certain barre chords impossible. The action was high and difficult to play, there was an ugly squaretooth harmonic coming from the D string, the tuners were faulty…I sent it back in mid-May demanding a refund but they refused, saying they gave no refunds on custom guitars. (But Federal and State Consumer Protection Laws and Lemon Laws make that refund refusal illegal, imho. Plus – they breached the contract by failing to deliver an acceptable guitar by February 24 (“4 Months” as specified on their Invoice of 10/24/22).)
Via text, I immediately reported problems with the guitar and though they asked me to await a decision until May 20th, on May 11th, I detailed its many flaws and emailed them that it was “not a keeper.” Rick knows this – and I have the email to prove it – but he wants you to believe I was “happy” and sent the guitar back for repairs. No – I WANTED NO PART OF IT.
They offered to refurbish the lemon but I did not pay $15,500 for a refurbished guitar – nor am I willing to wait another 6-7 months hoping they’ll build one that’s right. Plus it was for an album now done.
Please also note Rick Pimentel’s telling confesssional response to this review: “He ordered a Standard Classical guitar…” – yet he elsewhere inexplicably claims it was a CUSTOM guitar. No – by his own admission he made a STANDARD guitar. Nonetheless, Federal and State Consumer Protection Laws and Lemon Laws – not to mention CONTRACT LAWS – state I am due a full refund by law.
After posting bad reviews on the internet, they offered on Aug. 15 to give me a partial refund of $14,500 (they would keep the remaining $1,000) in return for not writing more bad reviews. I reluctantly agreed.
They were supposed to give me that $14,500 refund immediately, on Aug. 15. To date, they still owe me $5,250 (not to mention the additional $1,000 they withheld) and all I get from Rick Pimentel are lame excuses for not paying me the complete refund he’d promised.
So now I must head to court to achieve justice.
Buyer beware!