D-55 on its way to Guild for warranty service

At this point, I am asking them for a full refund, then buying a used D55. There are a plethora of them out there.

I am hoping that the guy who I last heard was running Guild's finishing department will be working on your guitar (eventually).

He also worked at New Hartford, and previously at Gibson's custom shop in Nashville. In fact, he rebuilt one of Duane Eddy's water-damaged guitars after a flood inundated a Nashville practice facility used by many musicians.

Fingers crossed for a high-quality (if slow) repair of your D-55.

Lots of places are still struggling with backed up production lines and so priorities shift. I never expected this to be quick unless they just replaced it. So, you wait......

Additionally, lets not forget that Guild recently laid some people off so they’re probably understaffed.

And why did they need to lay people off?

GAD said:

Additionally, lets not forget that Guild recently laid some people off so they’re probably understaffed.

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Guessing that’s not a very good sign, since everyone & their brother seems to be looking for people to hire.

bobouz said:

Guessing that’s not a very good sign, since everyone & their brother seems to be looking for people to

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finding people to work still seems hard to do . veryone is hiring but many don’t care to work . Don’t ask me how they do it .
If I lived close to Guild I’d beg for a job especially if they could pay me a livable wage . I’d be a guitar building fool !

lay offs make sense if sales are slack and it also seems company’s would rather over work the few then pay the many .

Rayk said:

finding people to work still seems hard to do .

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That's precisely my point, Ray. This would seem like a bad time to lay people off if you wanted to keep production humming along. Hiring replacement workers to step in is not easy, even in good times, given the training & oversight required to get new people up to speed and assure a quality product.

Conversely, letting people go who are already trained and getting the job done would seemingly indicate the existence of a problem that needs to be overcome - whether it be slow sales or otherwise.

Rayk said:

finding people to work still seems hard to do . veryone is hiring but many don’t care to work . Don’t ask me how they do it .
If I lived close to Guild I’d beg for a job especially if they could pay me a livable wage . I’d be a guitar building fool !

lay offs make sense if sales are slack and it also seems company’s would rather over work the few then pay the many .

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Me too! I can't build them, but I can strum them to do Quality Assurance, and I can definitely dust them. They could pay me in guitars!

bobouz said:

That's precisely my point, Ray. This would seem like a bad time to lay people off if you wanted to keep production humming along. Hiring replacement workers to step in is not easy, even in good times, given the training & oversight required to get new people up to speed and assure a quality product.

Conversely, letting people go who are already trained and getting the job done would seemingly indicate the existence of a problem that needs to be overcome - whether it be slow sales or otherwise.

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Sometimes management causes more problems than workers. How many of us like to be micromanaged by someone who constantly suggest changes in the way we are doing a job? And that bosses' butter slid off their biscuit a good while ago.
Each of us have a topic or skill we are proficient at and when we talk to someone who, supposedly, has that same skill level--it takes us about five minutes to realize they are "jawbones not backbones." - easily replaced.
End of rant!

How about we stay focused on Guild and this repair?

That's frustrating, but if it's any consolation, I hear Martin will have your guitar for much much longer for warranty repairs. I've heard upwards of a year on some forums.

Wellington said:

That's frustrating, but if it's any consolation, I hear Martin will have your guitar for much much longer for warranty repairs. I've heard upwards of a year on some forums.

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Thank you. That provides some needed perspective. I was just about to call and nag, and now I think I'll wait another week before I do that.

And that bosses' butter slid off their biscuit a good while ago.

they are "jawbones not backbones." -

Two sayings I've never heard before.....but will be using going forward, even tho I am not sure what the first one really means!!

Wellington said:

I hear Martin will have your guitar for much much longer for warranty repairs.

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Yes, this. I had to wait many months for the factory to perform a neck re-set under warranty. Granted, that was 10-11 years ago, but I know the situation is worse now.

I must say that this saga so far gives me some pause about current-day Guild.

Hope it works out

Another update.

As of this coming Monday, Guild has had my D-55 in their possession for ten weeks. Periodically I call in for updates. Typically I have to call at least twice for any information. I call, and the person has no new information and promises to get back to me, and he doesn't, and I have to call again a few days later to remind him I'm waiting. L, R, R. The customer service guy I had been working with has left the company and I'm now working with his boss, but the experience is the same.

Everyone is very nice and friendly, and I've made it clear each time I call that my intent is not to hurry them. I feel like it should not take this long, but if it does, then that's how it is. I don't want a sloppy rush job from someone who resents being pestered to finish. But I do want to be kept informed, and they are not good at that part at all.

What would you do?

dwasifar said:

What would you do?

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Suck it up. Wait 8 weeks between calls. Customer service and communications are not what they once were. Many companies have more work than they can staff so somebody has to wait. Your hope and opinion as to how long it should take may not be grounded in reality. Hindsight being 20/20 if the amount of time the guitar was out of your hands was important then it should have been discussed beforehand. Perhaps they would have given you a realistic schedule or told you not to ship the guitar for a few weeks.

Not directly comparable, because you have only one vendor for factory warranty work, but home repair is like that around here. You can find a list with 10 companies that could do the job. 3 of them can't be contacted by phone or don't respond to a voice message within 3 days. The remaining 7 will set up a time for an estimate but four of them won't show, didn't contact you before to let you know and don't really care whether it is rescheduled or not. The remaining three will have estimates but get kind of squirrely if you ask when they will start and when they would be done. If you do accept the soonest start date, which is still several weeks out, there will be no communication until the phone call that says "we'll be there tomorrow". So your dealings like Guild are pretty much what I have now been trained to expect from local home repair. Maybe I'm too cynical.

fronobulax said:

Not directly comparable, because you have only one vendor for factory warranty work, but home repair is like that around here. You can find a list with 10 companies that could do the job. 3 of them can't be contacted by phone or don't respond to a voice message within 3 days. The remaining 7 will set up a time for an estimate but four of them won't show, didn't contact you before to let you know and don't really care whether it is rescheduled or not. The remaining three will have estimates but get kind of squirrely if you ask when they will start and when they would be done. If you do accept the soonest start date, which is still several weeks out, there will be no communication until the phone call that says "we'll be there tomorrow". So your dealings like Guild are pretty much what I have now been trained to expect from local home repair.

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I thought this was only a problem in Florida -- good to know I'm not alone!