Faulty and dirty soldering on new PRS SE McCarty 594. Unprofessional sloppy job and lack of QC

[Piing]

After 2 weeks playing my brand new PRS SE McCarty 594 the bridge pickup has started randomly failing. Opening the pickup switch cover I've found a very ugly picture:

- There are traces of old wires that were previously soldered to the switch and have been cut. It looks like this is a recycled switch.
- I gently touched the cables, and the white wire of the bridge pickup was disconnected. Faulty soldering!! It looks like it was not even soldered or a cold-soldering, just pressed against the contact under the green wire (it as actually soldered to the melted plastic of the green wire, not to the terminal)
- Very dirty soldering. Unprofessional job.
- The green wire is partially melted

Sloppy job and deficient QC. There are two inspection labels: one says T-6 and the other has a signature and a date 24/11/2022

Very disappointing first experience with PRS. If this had happened on a gig, it would have been a disaster

But overall I am happy with this guitar and I am starting to bond with it, even though I am a devoted Strat and SuperStrat player and I am used to J.Custom quality.

Besides this incident, it is an excellent guitar

 

[Alnus Rubra]

Welcome and my advice would be to contact your dealer and see what kind of resolution you can come to.

I’m sure an email to PRS customer service would be advisable too (with pic attached), as I’m sure they would want to see this, as it may an issue that can be avoided in the future.

Best of luck.

 

[Herr Squid]

I'll second the thought that PRS oughta know about that problem. If there's an upside, it's that this kind of thing is a very fixable.

And that really is a very nice-looking guitar!

 

[ViperDoc]

Grab some flux and solder, heat up the iron and fix it.

 

[Piing]

I've already fixed it myself. I've also written to customer service with pic and serial number, just to make them aware of the QC issue.

BTW, things got even worst when I was proceeding to solder it. The ground wire was disconnected when I touched the cables. It had a cold solder joint.

This guitar must have been made by skilled luthiers, because it is flawless and it excels in all aspects. Everything at the potentiometer cavity is also neatly soldered and arranged. But something went wrong at the switch cavity. They used a recycled switch, and the person that soldered it was not qualified for the job.

 

[ViperDoc]

I've already fixed it myself. I've also written to customer service with pic and serial number, just to make them aware of the QC issue.

BTW, things got even worst when I was proceeding to solder it. The ground wire was disconnected when I touched the cables. It had a cold solder joint.

The guitar must have been made by skilled luthiers, because it is flawless and it excels in all aspects. Everything at the potentiometer cavity is also neatly soldered and arranged. But something went wrong at the switch cavity. They used a recycled switch, and the person that soldered it was not qualified for the job.

Well done. It's a bit difficult to see what's going on with the top white wire, but so long as it works and is quiet, that's all you need. I advocate anyone in the guitar world learn how to manage their electronics. I'm always learning.

I love the perspective on this shot, btw.