Collings Customer Service

[Jstring]

A few weeks ago, there was a post about a near-mint 2012 Collings MF gloss top for sale at a killer price ($2975) at Dave's Guitar Shop in Wisconsin. With tax refund in hand, MAS struck and I bought it...

It arrived last week and while I thought I might just flip it, it actually sounds amazing...my band mates think it's the equal of my Ellis, it's that good.... so I'm going to keep it.

The downside? The tuners were SO stiff that I could barely bring it up to pitch after changing the strings... The string change took an hour....my fingers were too thrashed to play...much swearing... a second glass of Ardbeg...very frustrating....

I sent an email to Collings the next day to see if they could help... Mark Althans called me + sent a follow up email before I could even call him back. While I'm not the original owner, Mark offered to send me a replacement set of tuners, free of charge. And if I have trouble with the second set ( I won't mention the brand), he told me I can send them back and he'll upgrade me to Grovers, Schallers, etc.

How's that for customer service?? Given Collings' reputation, I expected that they would be responsive, but it's still nice to see a company go the extra mile to help a customer...

Here's a pic:

[Mark Wilson]

Killer mandolin, sweet price and new tuners for free? You're having a great week. Congrats!

[oldwave]

Use a little gun oil on the tuners, they are dry, you might not need new ones

[Jstring]

Use a little gun oil on the tuners, they are dry, you might not need new ones

Yeah, that's the first thing I tried... Took the strings off, put a drop of oil on each gear, a drop down each post, then turned each one 20-30 times....Loosened each tuner screw, then snugged it back up... They turned OK, but started to bind once they had string pressure on them, especially the D and G tuners.

Mark from Collings told me that the manufacturer had some problems+ that the problems have since been rectified. The new ones should be here tomorrow... Hopefully they'll work fine...

I was just happy that Collings didn't care that I was the second owner...

[F-2 Dave]

Glad to hear they're taking care of you. You may be the second owner, but you 're still a Collings owner. Good for them. Good for you.

[trevor]

I expect you got a set of tuners from the first batch of 'Elite' tuners. Hell to tune, I have them on one of my go to mandolins, they have eased a little but are still very stiff.

[renoyd]

Seems like tuners are often problematic these days. And from what I understand, they change from batch to batch, (often for the worse), and come in from different plants in China. On some of these, lubrication will not work - the worm gears are just too long and are jammed so tight into the back side posts that they bind and gall. I wanted bkack buttons and found that selection of good, smooth tuners was poor, even from Stewmac. Got a set of German made Rubners, these have Teflon bearings and are smooth as butter, plus look better than others. Price is excellent for what you get. Highly recommend these, no personal interest.

[Caleb]

The only thing (and I really mean that) about my Collings that isn't absolutely perfect is the tuners. I'm pretty sure mine are the ones from StewMac and they really are subpar. I had my old Eastman 505 out the other day and noticed the buttery smoothness of the tuners and thought it's just not right for an Eastman to beat out a fine instrument like a Collings in this area.

The Collings tuners hold tune ok, but a couple of them are a bit hard to turn. I wish they'd at least use whatever Eastman is using (Schallers?) as a standard feature. I bought and sent back two sets of those StewMac tuners in the past because I wanted black buttons on the Eastman. StewMac has/had some serious QC issues on those. They really need to go back to the drawing board.

[Don Grieser]

Hope it all works out. I bet Collings checked out the replacement tuners before they sent them to you.

[Jstring]

Trevor- good guess, they are Golden Age, not Elites, but both are made by Stew-Mac so I suspect your stiffness issues are the same as mine...

Caleb- if you bought your Collings recently and it has tuners from the same batch (give them your year/serial number) I imagine they would help you out too...

Don- another good guess- in the end Collings just told me to call Stew-Mac and tell them what was going on, and ask them to hand-pick a good set. So, that's what I did. When I called Stew-Mac, all I said was "I have a Collings with tuner issues", and they said "Ok, we'll send you a good set".

So, this is clearly an established issue... Mark at Collings said that some of the Golden Age tuners had problems, but they've made some changes and that the replacement set should be perfectly satisfactory.

On another note, the tuners arrived today from Stew-Mac and they work VERY smoothly. As soon as my toddler goes to bed, I will put them on the mandolin and report back.

Lastly, I started this thread to praise Collings, not to criticize anyone's tuners. So, I just wanted to emphasize that both Collings and Stew-Mac have been 100% helpful and accommodating. Furthermore, I've heard a ton of players say "I love this instrument except for the Gotoh...or Schaller... or Grover tuners". I've also heard more than one person say, "these Waverly tuners aren't any smoother than Golden-Age,etc. tuners"....

[Jstring]

Update: just wanted to bring closure to this thread in case anyone stumbles upon it... I installed the replacement Golden Age tuners, and they are 100% satisfactory... Very smooth, no complaints. I wouldn't hesitate to order another set from StewMac.

[Josh Levine]

A few months back I bought a 2002 mt2 on the cafe. After having it a couple weeks took it to a jam and was wailing on it. A little lacquer chip came off the back of the neck. I called Collings and they said send it in if it is a warranty issue we will take care of it. They reported that it could benefit from a refinished back neck and sides covered under warranty. ( even though its 13 years old and I'm not the original owner) Pretty amazing customer service if you ask me. I will be excited to get back my refinished MT2 in a few months.

[Roland Sturm]

Collings makes great instruments and puts abysmal tuners on them. I replaced the tuners on two of them (MT and MT2). Looks like you need to buy an MF5 Deluxe to get decent tuners.

[darylcrisp]

Seems like tuners are often problematic these days. And from what I understand, they change from batch to batch, (often for the worse), and come in from different plants in China. On some of these, lubrication will not work - the worm gears are just too long and are jammed so tight into the back side posts that they bind and gall. I wanted bkack buttons and found that selection of good, smooth tuners was poor, even from Stewmac. Got a set of German made Rubners, these have Teflon bearings and are smooth as butter, plus look better than others. Price is excellent for what you get. Highly recommend these, no personal interest.

where did you buy the Rubners?
just wondering for future use

thanks
d