Not impressed with Suhr or their dealers (a rant)

I emailed my contact at Suhr to get his opinion on the birdseye. I really don't want to switch, but I don't want any more problems either. The neck is finished, so it may not even be an option.
 
I posted a message there once a couple months ago in response to my dealer boasting about a 3 month wait time, but only because it hit a nerve. Suhr's customer support manager saw my reply and I've been dealing with him directly since then.
 
I have a friend who has ordered three guitars from Suhr and all of the service he has gotten has been total BS. (He's easy to track down... he's from Finland and has a few rants about Suhr on most active gear forums online)

Anyways after seeing him getting screwed over three times in a row I'm NEVER GOING TO BUY A SUHR GUITAR. They treat people like crap and they're compensation for their mistakes are an abomination. They run their business in a cheap way although their prices are sky high as if they were a premium company. Luckily we're connected in Scandinavia and the word has gone around and more and more people are on a Suhr-strike.

My friend got that exact same exaplanation: “there was an issue with the body and we are unable to use it for the build”. But wait.. TWICE! How is that possible? I think they use this as an excuse when they haven't actually started to build the instrument in the first place. The first top my friend chose was really nice.. okay that body "had an issue" so they gave him another choice of some really nice tops as a compensation. That sounded really professional from their end UNTIL they screwed up that uber nice top that they promised and in the end he ended up with just a regular top that wasn't really that nice. All the mistakes they made for these guitars have been a joke. Wrong pickups!! We found that out when doing a pickup switch. Volume and tone knob were the wrong way around. Wrong fretboard wood... ah.. I'm not really the right guy to talk about this... my friend will post his experience soon so I'll make sure to link it here.

The first compensation they gave for a shitty deal was a distortion pedal. Let's be honest one of those pedals costs under $50 for them to make one. Now... IIRC this last guitar took 10 months to be ready. Holy crack whore! And another friend ordered a Suhr and got his in two months. That makes no sense. Even guitar stores on YouTube deliver custom orders in two months. So my friends waits 10 months. Oh that's premium customer service right there. :D Well Suhr's compensation was something along the lines of: "didn't we already give you a free pedal last time". Mr. Suhr and Big Don can only blaim themselves for running their business in a lazy way. The customer should not need to know about their factory problems.

You might notice I'm pissed. :D I am... I was really hoping to order a custom guitar from Suhr but HELL NO!
 
Sorry to hear he had such problems with getting his guitar.
I know a bunch of guys who had no issues getting their customs from Suhr, but there can be exceptions of course.
personally I have only good things to say about Suhr, John himself has helped me alot of times and answered mails very fast even during the weekends!
I have had about 15-20 Suhrs and still have a bunch, love them!
 
Sorry to hear about your experience. I have dealt with Suhr on the amp side of things and found them to be beyond wonderful with their customer service. Even to the point of doing things for free that they had every right to charge for. I do remember however that they were in no hurry. It was all wonderful in the end but their time table was on the geologic scale. I have 3 Suhr guitars and they are all great. My CAA OD-100 SE+ was wonderful as well but I sold it for an AXE-FX ;)
 
I had some frustrations with communication between the dealer & Suhr, and it took six months to build, but the guitar was awesome when I finally got it. 3 years down the road the truss rod broke and they replaced it free of charge. In my experience they have been great, but I do remember being frustrated during the build process.
 
My EVH Wolfgang that I have had for 4 years or so has a Birdseye maple neck, and it has been perfect the entire time.
 
Post this over the Gear Page, John Suhr will reply shortly and make it up to you for any dealers errors, he has done this in the past.

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say what happened at the Gear Page since Suhr made my friend swear not to tell publicly about the eff ups they made. So at least he's trying to cover things up by giving a ridiculously small discount. And yes he made my friend remove his post where he publicly talked about the delay on his guitar. To me he sounds like a Russian villain from Die Hard.
 
Dang, sounds like more potential problems for me. Neither the dealer nor anyone at Suhr gave me any indication there might be a problem with the birdseye maple. I did a quick Google search and there is a lot of debate on this. General consensus is that there is a small chance you may have stability problems. :(

I build a lotta guitars and have never had a problem with any figured Maple (curly, birdseye, tiger, burl) but the wood needs to be properly cured/seasoned and you have to have a hard finish on it. Otherwise, any Maple is a bit squirrelly. Funny, because it's a really hard, closed-cell wood and you'd think it'd be stable as a rock.

My preference and what gets used 90% of the time are exotics. Much more stable, rarely need finishes, and sound/feel absolutely wonderful. If you want the sound of Maple without the finish, then Canary is an excellent choice. The wood itself is a bit more expensive, but since you don't need to finish it you break about even, maybe even do a little better on price.
 
I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say what happened at the Gear Page since Suhr made my friend swear not to tell publicly about the eff ups they made. So at least he's trying to cover things up by giving a ridiculously small discount. And yes he made my friend remove his post where he publicly talked about the delay on his guitar. To me he sounds like a Russian villain from Die Hard.

Thats is a very bad thing!!

Could be interesting if the OP posted over at TGP and then told the hole story as it goes, to on cover the truth behind the good facade JS is putting on public forums then.
 
I only have one Suhr, but based on their communications on their own site and other guitar forums, I wouldn't call them unresponsive. Quite the opposite, almost like Cliff and Fractal.
 
Well, i can only go off my own experience and John is one of the most helpful guys that I know. My two guitars arrived promptly. They are still my main live guitars almost 10 years later.
He has also been really helpful with advice on equipment where he no longer has anything to do with the company who manufacturer it. He has even given me great advice on equipment where he never had anything to do with the company that made it in the first place.
I have been endorsed by G&L, ESP, Yamaha and more but I paid for my Suhr guitars and I love them.
 
I posted on their forum asking about their 5-way switch wiring for HSS guitars and got a reply telling me to email them.

They answered a ton of questions and seemed like a great shop. I never spent a nickel and they didn't know me from adam but my interaction was really pro.
 
Dang, sounds like more potential problems for me. Neither the dealer nor anyone at Suhr gave me any indication there might be a problem with the birdseye maple. I did a quick Google search and there is a lot of debate on this. General consensus is that there is a small chance you may have stability problems. :(

Is your neck "Roasted" ? Maybe they didn't mention it because the roasting process is supposed to stabilize the Birdseye maple. And I think that Suhr even extends the warranty to Roasted Birdseye ..., before the roasted became available, the didn't do that ....
 
So now my friend made the public post about Suhr. This one is in Finnish so you probably won't understand it unless you're 0,5% of the worlds population: Muusikoiden.net - Keskustelu - Suhr Guitars boikottiin - Epic Fails - I'm sure he will post it on TGP later.

So to recap. He has ordered FOUR CUSTOM SUHR GUITARS.

1st guitar: Floyd Rose broken in two pieces, wrong pickups.

2nd guitar: Wrong color pickups.

3rd guitar: Wrong pickup selector switch, volume knob in place of tone knob and vice versa. Was supposed to take 10 months to build but took 16 months.

4th guitar: Was supposed to be ready in 3 months but took over 10 months. Contacted Suhr about the guitar after 3 months and they admitted they hadn't started making it. "A human error" they called it. However he would get onto a "hotlist" and the guitar would be ready in a month. Well... it took 7 months from that point. They promised him a premium top because of the three guitars that had problems before. In the end they didn't give this premium top. They promised a discount for the wait but last week when my friend got his guitar they asked for the full price.

And John Suhr has lost it. He used to be something special... now he's just trying his best to maintain a good reputation and that's the only motivation for him being a nice guy. Not a genuine nice guy... there's a big difference.

Then you see something like this:



That proves that all their claims of delays etc. are bullshit. Imagine the look on my friends face when his guitar was supposed to be ready 6 months ago when that video came out and they're saying. "It only took 2 months."

F*** SUHR!
 
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