Factory defect humbucker

[olrocknroller]

I bought some rather spendy humbuckers as a set from a "large" US based manufacturer a while back, and recently decided to install them in my latest project. Long story short, the best I could do to get them to produce decent output was to wire the bridge pickup slug backwards. This brought the volume up, but left the signal sounding muddy. After checking impedances, polarity, yada-yada, I contacted the firm. After a few emails, they agreed the pickup was faulty, and suggested I send it back for replacement/repair. They have offered to do this on warranty, even though I'm a bit outside the year of coverage, so cudos to them.

Have any other of you builders out there run into this problem? Have any of you torn into the PUP to sort it out yourself? If so, I'd like some details for future reference because I will have an unfinished guitar on my hands until I get the return shipment...many sleeps from now!

[Haole Jim]

Replaced stock not-great pups on a Fender Mexico P-Bass and 50s Stratocaster and Japan Jazzmaster with Fender American Vintage Reissues and no problems, just good results.

[olrocknroller]

Well, to make a long story even longer, the un-named company didn't want the pickups returned, just shipped new ones! So! I tore into the bad ones, feeling I had nothing to lose. The color coded wires were installed incorrectly, and differently on each pickup! Somebody was having a bad Monday morning! I traced start, and end wires on each coil, and figured out what was what, and wired up according to the "new" color code, and they are working great. Advised them, and they said, basically, "Congratulations! You now have two sets!"

When they get it wrong, they make it right!

[oipunkguy]

I rarely buy pickups anymore since I make them. But if it was me, I'd probably dig into them and see what up. But unless you are skilled in making pickups, you probably shouldn't. It's easy to break a pickup if you don't know what you are doing.