Allparts customer service - anyone have any experience?

pikingrin

pikingrin

what is this?
Since I got the neck in and everything was good enough (going to have the frets replaced for something a little different but it has a nice feel to it) I ordered some knobs for my Epi mod. The neck came in 2 days, the knobs...well...they're out there somewhere.
Screen Shot 2015-10-08 at 3.15.19 PM.png
They've been, according the the US Postal Service, through 3 zipcodes in Houston, to my town and then back in Houston now. I was excited yesterday when tracking showed "out for delivery" but now they show to still be in Houston, only now at their 4th zipcode there.

So...my pickguard material isn't supposed to be here until tomorrow and I have no use for the new knobs other than to have them ready. Not going to call Allparts quite yet. Question is, how is their customer service?

Secondary question, although I doubt it matters, is that I paid $8 (more than the knobs) to have them shipped USPS - cheapest option. Is there any chance I could get the shipping costs refunded since it's already going to be a day "late" as of tomorrow? I'm not that much of a cheapskate, just a curiosity. I doubt that there's any chance of that happening because it wasn't a guaranteed service from UPS or FedEx but...at the same time I'm still curious.
 
I've used all parts products, but I've never purchased anything directly from them. They are very high priced on their stuff and individuals licensed to sell all parts are pricing the same stuff 40% lower. You get a hell of a deal and on top of that if something goes haywire on the shipping you're dealing with one guy instead of a huge company. I have never had a shipping issue on anything I've ever purchased. I guess I'm lucky.
 
Arc - Smartpost and I have a long running hate for each other. I have had crap routed out of my state of residence and back in from a shipping location of less than 2 hours away. 4 days for a 4 hour round trip. I don't really like to gripe about the shipping services but... :o

Jimi - I need to revisit that list of links you put up...should have probably done that before I ordered the stupid knobs. I need a 3-way on/on/on mini toggle for this extension of the rebuild; hopefully the distributors offer those as well.
 
personally I loath UPS and have had great service from USPS.
But the shipper being squirrelly has nothing to do with AllParts ..... they can't control what the shipper does.
 
Here's what I don't understand - you want to get the $8 shipping charges refunded, but you're going to replace the frets on the brand new neck you just bought? :confused:
 
notCardio said:
Here's what I don't understand - you want to get the $8 shipping charges refunded, but you're going to replace the frets on the brand new neck you just bought? :confused:
Click to expand...
The neck is fine as-is, the fretwork is an option that I am considering. I'm not too concerned about the shipping costs, I was just curious and typing my thoughts out. Maybe I should have kept that tidbit in my head... :D
 
Hey, I'm not knocking you for trying to recover the shipping, I'd be downright pissed if it were me. I guess I shouldn't have tied the two together.

It just seemed to me that this would be an awfully expensive way to buy a lower end neck. But I guess you wouldn't have known what the frets were like until you got it, plus you're just kind of experimenting and learning, so you didn't want to do that on a higher end piece. Are you going to try to replace the frets yourself, if and when the time comes? That's something I'm definitely too big of a chickenshit to try to do. (Along with a lot of other stuff.) I'd have to try that on a $25 pawn shop junker first, because I am pretty sure of what the outcome would be on my first attempt.
 
notCardio said:
Hey, I'm not knocking you for trying to recover the shipping, I'd be downright pissed if it were me. I guess I shouldn't have tied the two together.

It just seemed to me that this would be an awfully expensive way to buy a lower end neck. But I guess you wouldn't have known what the frets were like until you got it, plus you're just kind of experimenting and learning, so you didn't want to do that on a higher end piece. Are you going to try to replace the frets yourself, if and when the time comes? That's something I'm definitely too big of a chickenshit to try to do. (Along with a lot of other stuff.) I'd have to try that on a $25 pawn shop junker first, because I am pretty sure of what the outcome would be on my first attempt.
Click to expand...
I would NOT recommend anyone try to replace the frets ..... without experience you'd very likely have much worse frets than whatever came with the neck no matter how bad they might be.
Simply do a fret dressing ..... get them properly leveled and then a nice rounding and polish.
Be pretty rare that a proper dressing wouldn't get them in good shape .... the ONLY reason I could think of to replace frets on a new neck would be if you wanted something different like super jumbo or super tiny frets.
And in that case prolly should order a different neck.
 
Lt. Bob said:
I would NOT recommend anyone try to replace the frets ..... without experience you'd very likely have much worse frets than whatever came with the neck no matter how bad they might be.
Simply do a fret dressing ..... get them properly leveled and then a nice rounding and polish.
Be pretty rare that a proper dressing wouldn't get them in good shape .... the ONLY reason I could think of to replace frets on a new neck would be if you wanted something different like super jumbo or super tiny frets.
And in that case prolly should order a different neck.
Click to expand...

Well, that was my thinking, but then I thought maybe he just wanted to see if he could do it himself for the experience of trying it and not hack up an expensive neck. If he were going to pay someone to do it, then it seemed to me to be a super-expensive way of doing things.
 
The knobs came in today and they are exactly what I was hoping for so that's all fine and good. Mini toggle (from AP, too) is supposed to be here this coming Tuesday.

The whole neck thing is just to get my guitar body from blank to functional without having to invest the time (and frustration) into making my own. I wasn't expecting it to be the be-all end-all guitar neck and didn't really have high expectations. With that said, however, it's definitely better than I expected. The frets are fine but I may want them to be a little different (think Gibson height/width instead of fender) for giggles down the road. Will I try it myself? Negative; I have no clue how to do all of that work cleanly. When I pulled the frets out of an old beater strat to make it fretless it was kind of a nightmare. I've got a guy up in NE Indiana that can do all the refret work if (and/or when) I get to that point. I may even see if he would let me bird dog him for a while and try it myself - only then would I consider attempting any of that myself. Hell, I don't touch fretwork as it is now, he does all the leveling, etc, for me (for a really good price) so I don't even have to hassle with it.
 
Speaking of mini toggles... I bought mine through AP simply because GFS didn't have them, my local brick and mortars (lowes, radioshack, autozone, etc) didn't have them and stewmac wanted more than what I wanted to spend on them based on AP's pricing.

Outside of ebay/amazon and the like, are there any trusted vendors out there on the interweb to source the switches and all that from in the future that anyone would want to share?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top