Fender is not honoring older Guild lifetime warranties.

geoguy

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HP recently announced they were exiting the PC business:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2391382,00.asp

So, enjoy your future Dell, frono . . . them being the last big PC-maker still standing, & all. :mrgreen:

(fwiw, I also had warranty issues with previous Dells & won't buy another)

Back to guitars . . .

Seems to me that the remaining number of legitimate warranty claims for pre-Fender Guilds has to be really miniscule. How many manufacturing defects could still be identified now, after all these years? I know twocorgis had one, but that was really an exceptional case.

So if Guild elects to honor some future "warranty" claims (no matter how bogus) as a matter of goodwill, good for them (and us). But those of us who own old instruments should also be responsible for maintaining our equipment - and some of the "warranty" claims alluded to in this forum sound more like normal maintenance to me. Free maintenance in perpetuity simply isn't realistic, for Guild or any other manufacturer, regardless of any changes in Company ownership.
 

adorshki

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geoguy said:
HP recently announced they were exiting the PC business:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2391382,00.asp
Yeah, but I think Whitman changed her mind again within a couple of days, nyet?

geoguy said:
Seems to me that the remaining number of legitimate warranty claims for pre-Fender Guilds has to be really miniscule. How many manufacturing defects could still be identified now, after all these years? I know twocorgis had one, but that was really an exceptional case.
Plus he still had his receipt, :lol: , but still...it was a condition of the warranty!
I think I mentioned that point about "how many can there be?" somewhere previously, too.
Aerohead said:
Also i might add without honouring the lifetime warranty I can guarantee my next brand new guitar will be purchased from someone who does!
An understandable attitude, but in this day and age, there's really no guarantee that what happened to Guild won't happen to anybody else...a change of ownership if not outright bakruptcy and closure, even for someone as apparently rock-solid stable as Martin.
Just sayin'.
 

fronobulax

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Here is my simplistic take to estimating how many potential pre-Fender warranty claims there might realistically be.

HP has been waffling about the PC business and the stock price was getting hammered as a result. Last I heard though, Whitman said they were staying in the business.

@capn - I don't know if this is true for Fender and Guild but the following pattern has been used in other acquisitions. The Pacman Corp wants to buy Nibbles, Inc. The lawyers draw up an agreement selling all of the assets of Nibbles to Pacman. Legalese makes it clear the liabilities are not being transferred and includes an indemnity clause as you suggested. If Pacman has secured creditors or folks who might have legal standing to object to the sale ("interested third parties") the agreement may place part of the sale proceeds in escrow or otherwise include some way to satisfy the interests of the secured creditors. Once the sale is concluded, Nibbles files for bankruptcy or just dissolves itself. Since there are no assets owned by Nibbles the latter saves some lawyer fees. No point in searching for other creditors because there is nothing left to pay them with. Either way the legal entity responsible does not exist anymore so there is no recourse.
 

adorshki

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fronobulax said:
No point in searching for other creditors because there is nothing left to pay them with. Either way the legal entity responsible does not exist anymore so there is no recourse.
Gad!! Why that's...that's....lawyerish!! :twisted: :lol:
 

capnjuan

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fronobulax said:
... @capn - I don't know if this is true for Fender and Guild but the following pattern has been used in other acquisitions. The Pacman Corp wants to buy Nibbles, Inc. The lawyers draw up an agreement selling all of the assets of Nibbles to Pacman. Legalese makes it clear the liabilities are not being transferred and includes an indemnity clause as you suggested. If Pacman has secured creditors or folks who might have legal standing to object to the sale ("interested third parties") the agreement may place part of the sale proceeds in escrow or otherwise include some way to satisfy the interests of the secured creditors. Once the sale is concluded, Nibbles files for bankruptcy or just dissolves itself. Since there are no assets owned by Nibbles the latter saves some lawyer fees. No point in searching for other creditors because there is nothing left to pay them with. Either way the legal entity responsible does not exist anymore so there is no recourse.

Hi Frono: ... if that's what happened.

My point is that whether there's an avenue to viable warranty claims might be in the realm of a 'knowable thing' - it actually might be possible to find out. Without researching US Bankruptcy Court for Rhode Island records and, now that you mention it - thank you, dissolution filings with the Rhode Island Secretary of State, neither you nor I can answer the question.

So far, I've suggested that it might be possible that someone is still on the hook.
So far, you've suggested that it might be possible that no one is still on the hook.

I know you've recounted this 'company vanishes in the night' scenario before. Since you don't do it with glee, would it be fair to say that you ... personally or professionally ... were victimized by it?

Given the widespread, on-line access to public records everywhere and the magic of a WestLaw account, the choices come down to:
- Taking a warranty beating from Fender,
- Looking to see, out of idle curiosity, if a question can be answered in the negative, or
- Spending some time and a buck or two to see if legacy warranty rights still exist.

If I was an original Guild owner with a bona fide warranty claim and tired of taking guff from Fender but willing to spend a little money and time to find out the facts, the prospect of my being able to (legally) bitch-slap an ex-Guild exec over his throwing my warranty rights under the bus ... well ... to me, that would be time and money well-spent!
 

fronobulax

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U.S. corporate law allows assets and liabilities to be separated and allows for liabilities that are not passed on to the owner of the corporation. So if the lawyers are smart enough when Fender buys Guild, Fender buys the assets and the former owners legally abandon the liabilities. If "we" agree that this is possible then we are in violent agreement and really discussing how smart the various lawyers involved were. If we don't agree then it's probably time to agree to disagree.

I will note that Guild has had several owners and if you do believe that liabilities and warranties are both lifetime and not necessarily transferable then you need to use your date of purchase to aim your lawyers at U.S. Music, F.A.S.S, The Guild Guitar Corporation, Avenet, the estate of Al Dronge or whatever entity owned Guild at the time. Good luck with that :wink:

As a tangent, several online histories of Fender note that when it was purchased from CBS Bill Schultz and partners bought "only the name, the patents, and the parts that were left over in stock". One might ask similar questions about the warranty of a pre-1985 Fender and be pleasantly surprised if CBS honors the warranty.
 

capnjuan

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The short of it is that you don't know of your own knowledge - any more than I do - whether there's a residual path for bona fide warranty claims. Instead of you dump-trucking everybody with a lot of negative speculation, we could try agreeing on that.

Anybody who wanted to take a shot at it need only spend a few hours doing some on-line research and spend $50 or so on a Westlaw account. If they did, they'd be in possession of more Guild/Fender-specific facts than either of us. We could try agreeing on that.

Whether 'it's worth doing' or a 'good idea' depends largely on whether anybody believes themselves entitled to warranty support from the company-formerly-known-as-Guild. Since neither of us qualifies, neither of us are in position to pass judgment on it. We could try agreeing on that.

What do you care whether anybody succeeds at this or not?
 

fronobulax

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We don't know what we don't know. I am willing to speculate based upon my experiences in similar situations which admittedly do not involve warranty claims for a consumer product but do involve liabilities that were incurred by a corporation that was subsequently purchased by another corporation where the liabilities were not honored because of the terms of the sale and there was no entity that could be taken to court and held liable for the liabilities. (No bankruptcy was declared, either). Maybe I shouldn't generalize and speculate.

As the original purchaser of a Guild JS II bass in 1972 with a "lifetime" warranty and in possession of a legible receipt with serial number I do have a dog in this fight.
 

adorshki

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fronobulax said:
Maybe I shouldn't generalize and speculate.
AS an inveterate speculator myself, I find useful food for thought in your observations. They would for example probably help someone who may be so inclined to go do the research which may reveal the definitive answer to the question of "Who's got the warranty?".
At the very many useful and relevant legal concepts have been brought out.
I'd forgotten about you being the original owner of your JetStar bass, but yeah, if it was me, I'd want that "lifetime warranty" to still be in effect.
 
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