Fender Vintera '60s Stratocaster Electric Guitar 3-Color Sunburst

Didn't like the fingerboard straight away. Seemed rather dry. The e string on the treble side was so close to the edge of the fingerboard string bending on the side was out of the question. Took it to GC Tulsa and paid to have it set up. Same situation. Ended up taking it to a shop that found a laundry list of issues. Contacted Fender about the warranty, Fender sent an old list of Fender repair folks a couple whom told me that they don't do warranty work for Fender because Fender has a hard time sending checks to repair folks. ALLEGEDLY. Should have gone with my gut and sent this thing right back,

The good is that is delivers classic Strat tones, and the vintage neck/frets are VERY forgiving with chords—which is great if you play rhythm, but you might not dig it as much if you doing major note bending, as they note will quickly "die." The bad, though, far outweighs the good, and although I own more than a dozen guitars, this is the only one I regret buying. The bad is that I needed to spend about $600 to get and keep this thing playable. The setup upon delivery was horrendous, and despite having lots of experience with setups, I still needed professional help with some fretwork in order to get it properly intonated. Then, less than two years later, the B string started to "sitar," which required a new nut to correct...only to discover the that neck was very dry and started to pop frets, so additional fretwork was needed. Unfortunately, this was past Fender's warranty rules for workmanship, so, I was stuck with the bill. It's still not perfect, especially with the high action that is needed above the 12th frets in order for it to not "fret out."

I've played a lot of Stratocasters and this is the best vintage feeling guitar I have ever played. For being vintage I have no fretting out and the neck plays smooth and fast for me. I don't understand the complaints about this guitar, if your into a modern thin uncomfortable c shape and hum buckets or noiseless pick ups with jumbo frets that go out of intonation with hardly any wear than this isn't for you. If your looking for the absolute best bang for your buck that fender has ever produced than this guitar is for you. I've played American strats and deluxe and I don't like where my creative mind goes. You really get the authentic feel of what a Stratocaster is. Only recommendations I have as far as upgrading would be electronics. 65's would fit this guitar perfectly. But if your playing clean tones alot then the clean tones on this guitar are beautiful. Fender hit a deer spot here. I have 17 years of experience playing strats

One of the best Stratocasters I've ever played on. Great neck feel not sticky at all, 7.25 radius is fun to play on overall a great instrument. Sounds spot on to the original.

This guitar could have been a GREAT guitar but "Fender", (in their collective wisdom) can't seem to put together an AFFORDABLE guitar with all the elements players want and need like...a good feeling neck (soft V, mid 60's C, or even oval C) with an absolutely necessary "9.5" radius or a 10 or even a 12...or heres a thought...compound 7.5 radius to 9.5 anything but an antiquated 7.5 radius. Granted, these 7.5 necks were once all the rage back in the day and I have a few VINTAGE guitars with that radius which I never play on stage because I have to raise the action way to high so as to avoid fret out. In todays market I feel this is an unusable radius for studio or stage work. I really hate having to pay an extra $300.00 to $800.00 to get a decent feeling neck after I have already plopped down a grand and then buy pick ups to boot. A few years back Fender came close with the Classic Player 50's strat. This guitar felt and looked great! It had a modern soft V, (smaller than the old big chunky style...which was also good) nice looks and weight (heavy but not extremely heavy) and vintage style hardware (save for the cheap zinc bridge). Besides the zinc bridge (which is an affordable easy fix) The pickups were also too thin sounding (57/62) and the way it was wired was funky. However, I got buy and upgraded the pups for $99.00 (Fender 59's great pups buy the way). IMO The most IMPORTANT items on a guitar are the neck and the pups...very few working musicians (and I have been on stage for forty years) I have ever known used or currently use a 7.5 radius neck and just as few use a modern C or deep D or C or whatever. IMO Fender does not currently have ANY affordable guitars in the under a grand category that don't need significant mods for stage or studio play. I Love Fender guitars. Do better fender.

Yo is this vintera strat poly or nitro finish??