PRS repairs thread. UPDATE- Sims to the rescue.

octatonic

This came up in a FS thread- I didn't want to gunge up the OP's thread with unnecessary stuff but this is useful information.

Here is the situation as told to me by one of the PRS repair people.
If you need to return a guitar to PRS for a repair and are not the original owner as well as being in the UK then it probably won't be worth it.
You are unlikely to be able to get it done under warranty, as the PRS warranty specifically states it is for the original owner only.

Something to consider as well is the following:

We can accept guitars from outside of the US, but it is a big hassle.  Plus, there are inspection fees from the US Fish & Wildlife Service.  They must inspection the guitar for rosewood and shell inlays each time the guitar crosses the US border.  The fees are $200 in each direction.  If the guitar can be shipped to us from a US address and we can ship it back to a US address, we can bypass the USFW fees.  If a guitar is shipped to us from a US address, we cannot ship it out to an international address.  We need to inbound paperwork to justify the outbound paperwork.

Hopefully this helps people.

lysander

I don’t know PRS were made in a banana republic.
Way to go America !

Stevepage

There are a few excellent places in the UK that could repair a PRS just as well as they could. Not really necessary to send it to PRS anyway

octatonic

Stevepage said:

There are a few excellent places in the UK that could repair a PRS just as well as they could. Not really necessary to send it to PRS anyway

Yes, of course- but if you expect, as you can with some other manufacturers, that the warranty transfers with the guitar then this will not happen with PRS.
I've tried twice now.

Jonathanthomas83

PRS? Repairs? Huh?

handsomerik

Jonathanthomas83 said:

PRS? Repairs? Huh?

For the crappy laquer they use that peels off the edge of the fretboard or the blue dyes they use that fade back to nothing. 

I'm a huge PRS fan but these 2 issues are common and pretty poor imho given to cost of the guitars.

Kittyfrisk

octatonic said:

This came up in a FS thread- I didn't want to gunge up the OP's thread with unnecessary stuff but this is useful information.

Here is the situation as told to me by one of the PRS repair people.
If you need to return a guitar to PRS for a repair and are not the original owner as well as being in the UK then it probably won't be worth it.
You are unlikely to be able to get it done under warranty, as the PRS warranty specifically states it is for the original owner only.

Something to consider as well is the following:

We can accept guitars from outside of the US, but it is a big hassle.  Plus, there are inspection fees from the US Fish & Wildlife Service.  They must inspection the guitar for rosewood and shell inlays each time the guitar crosses the US border.  The fees are $200 in each direction.  If the guitar can be shipped to us from a US address and we can ship it back to a US address, we can bypass the USFW fees.  If a guitar is shipped to us from a US address, we cannot ship it out to an international address.  We need to inbound paperwork to justify the outbound paperwork.

Hopefully this helps people.

Anyone else find this to be a teeny weeny bit not very reassuring...? 
Presumably it went through the PRS kwollity process 

Stevepage

octatonic said:

Stevepage said:

There are a few excellent places in the UK that could repair a PRS just as well as they could. Not really necessary to send it to PRS anyway

Yes, of course- but if you expect, as you can with some other manufacturers, that the warranty transfers with the guitar then this will not happen with PRS.
I've tried twice now.

Yeah true. You would think Prs would've set up a repair centre within one of their distribution centres either here in the UK or on the European continent. 

octatonic

Kittyfrisk said:

octatonic said:

This came up in a FS thread- I didn't want to gunge up the OP's thread with unnecessary stuff but this is useful information.

Here is the situation as told to me by one of the PRS repair people.
If you need to return a guitar to PRS for a repair and are not the original owner as well as being in the UK then it probably won't be worth it.
You are unlikely to be able to get it done under warranty, as the PRS warranty specifically states it is for the original owner only.

Something to consider as well is the following:

We can accept guitars from outside of the US, but it is a big hassle.  Plus, there are inspection fees from the US Fish & Wildlife Service.  They must inspection the guitar for rosewood and shell inlays each time the guitar crosses the US border.  The fees are $200 in each direction.  If the guitar can be shipped to us from a US address and we can ship it back to a US address, we can bypass the USFW fees.  If a guitar is shipped to us from a US address, we cannot ship it out to an international address.  We need to inbound paperwork to justify the outbound paperwork.

Hopefully this helps people.

Anyone else find this to be a teeny weeny bit not very reassuring...? 
Presumably it went through the PRS kwollity process 

They are saying "It looks as though someone buffed the guitar and burned through the topcoat.  The witness line is where the topcoat is still exists on the body, but the area closer to the butt of the guitar has been buffed off."

I don't know if this is true or not- I bought it used (it was like this when I bought it and priced accordingly, I knew about it and figured I would see if it could be fixed).

This is a picture of the issue:



They suggested spraying some nitro over the area and buffing it up myself- it might fix the witness line, or it might not.
You only see the issue from some angles. most of the time it isn't viewable under normal light.

richardhomer

I’ve spoken to someone (called Chris IIRC) who works for PRS Europe and is one of their repairers. As I understand it, they can do pretty much anything - and yes - they charge if you’re not the original owner.

octatonic

richardhomer said:

I’ve spoken to someone (called Chris IIRC) who works for PRS Europe and is one of their repairers. As I understand it, they can do pretty much anything - and yes - they charge if you’re not the original owner.

Would you mind furnishing me with his contact details?

Flame_Guitars

handsomerik said:

Jonathanthomas83 said:

PRS? Repairs? Huh?

For the crappy laquer they use that peels off the edge of the fretboard or the blue dyes they use that fade back to nothing. 

I'm a huge PRS fan but these 2 issues are common and pretty poor imho given to cost of the guitars.

In all my years of working on other peoples guitars I have only had one "disaster". This was about 10 years ago and was with a 10 top PRS. I was doing some fretwork and used some masking tape to protect the fingerboard. The tape was also wrapped over the edge of the fingerboard. As I peeled off the tape, and to my horror, the lacquer along the edge of the rosewood fingerboard peeled away as well. After some research it became apparent that PRS were applying a new type of lacquer and that this was happening to quite a few guitars. Still, the guitar was in my hands and it was my responsibility to put this right. In the end I had to ship the guitar to PRS to have the neck resprayed. PRS didn't charge me as much as I expected (I think they didn't want a fuss and too much comment about the new finish). And to be fair, the repair they did was faultless. 

Kittyfrisk

octatonic said:

Kittyfrisk said:

octatonic said:

This came up in a FS thread- I didn't want to gunge up the OP's thread with unnecessary stuff but this is useful information.

Here is the situation as told to me by one of the PRS repair people.
If you need to return a guitar to PRS for a repair and are not the original owner as well as being in the UK then it probably won't be worth it.
You are unlikely to be able to get it done under warranty, as the PRS warranty specifically states it is for the original owner only.

Something to consider as well is the following:

We can accept guitars from outside of the US, but it is a big hassle.  Plus, there are inspection fees from the US Fish & Wildlife Service.  They must inspection the guitar for rosewood and shell inlays each time the guitar crosses the US border.  The fees are $200 in each direction.  If the guitar can be shipped to us from a US address and we can ship it back to a US address, we can bypass the USFW fees.  If a guitar is shipped to us from a US address, we cannot ship it out to an international address.  We need to inbound paperwork to justify the outbound paperwork.

Hopefully this helps people.

Anyone else find this to be a teeny weeny bit not very reassuring...? 
Presumably it went through the PRS kwollity process 

They are saying "It looks as though someone buffed the guitar and burned through the topcoat.  The witness line is where the topcoat is still exists on the body, but the area closer to the butt of the guitar has been buffed off."

I don't know if this is true or not- I bought it used (it was like this when I bought it and priced accordingly, I knew about it and figured I would see if it could be fixed).

This is a picture of the issue:



They suggested spraying some nitro over the area and buffing it up myself- it might fix the witness line, or it might not.
You only see the issue from some angles. most of the time it isn't viewable under normal light.

I was only criticising the bloody awful grammar in the PRS reply that you posted.
It might not matter much these days, but it still irks me.
Yours, disgusted of Tunbridge Wells...  

I didn't realise from the earlier information that this was a situation that you were directly involved in.
" They suggested spraying some nitro over the area and buffing it up myself" 
 I'm now genuinely speechless 
Hope you get sorted soon. 

richardhomer

octatonic said:

richardhomer said:

I’ve spoken to someone (called Chris IIRC) who works for PRS Europe and is one of their repairers. As I understand it, they can do pretty much anything - and yes - they charge if you’re not the original owner.

Would you mind furnishing me with his contact details?

PM’d

jeztone2

Blue dyes that fade? My 2000 CU22 is still very very dark blue. 

andy1839

On the other hand, as an original owner of a PRS, I've had it returned to PRS PTC through the dealer, refinished and returned FOC.

It took a while but they're happy to help and the service has been faultless.

I don't think there's many guitar companies that would honour a lifetime warranty on a product when it changes hands is there? (Honest question, I don't  think Gibson or Fender have transferable warranties)

I'm sure I read it on here that Paul said his biggest competition is the used market for PRS guitars, so it doesn't make good financial sense to repair used guitars.  If you're the first owner then you've spent your wedge of cash and get to enjoy the benefits of that, the warranty being the main one.

I know there's a uk based PRS repair centre, but anything like a full refinish will probably have to go back to the US.

octatonic

jeztone2 said:

Blue dyes that fade? My 2000 CU22 is still very very dark blue. 

Black gold.

octatonic

andy1839 said:

I don't think there's many guitar companies that would honour a lifetime warranty on a product when it changes hands is there? (Honest question, I don't  think Gibson or Fender have transferable warranties)

Some do- Lakewood come to mind.
Not many, granted.

ICBM

jeztone2 said:

Blue dyes that fade? My 2000 CU22 is still very very dark blue. 

The blue in the purple finishes was notorious for it. My ‘97 Custom 22 had turned completely pink by the time I bought it in 2001 - so much so that I assumed the colour was originally pink, until I took the rotary switch off and discovered that it was dark purple under the knob.

They had fixed the issue by 2002 since my purple Standard 22 didn’t fade at all - and from what you’re saying, probably earlier.

impmann

Chris is a good guy. His contact details can be found by looking up PRS UK by Google. He carries a lot of spares too.

A point of order - I’m not aware of anyone offering a lifetime warranty that is transferable to a new owner. That really would be above and beyond.

Whitecat

andy1839 said:

On the other hand, as an original owner of a PRS, I've had it returned to PRS PTC through the dealer, refinished and returned FOC.

It took a while but they're happy to help and the service has been faultless.

I don't think there's many guitar companies that would honour a lifetime warranty on a product when it changes hands is there? (Honest question, I don't  think Gibson or Fender have transferable warranties)

I'm sure I read it on here that Paul said his biggest competition is the used market for PRS guitars, so it doesn't make good financial sense to repair used guitars.  If you're the first owner then you've spent your wedge of cash and get to enjoy the benefits of that, the warranty being the main one.

I know there's a uk based PRS repair centre, but anything like a full refinish will probably have to go back to the US.

It does when you charge what the PTC charges!!