My Issues With Washburn Guitars
I’ve been playing my Washburn Idol for over 10 years, have four other models in my collection, and have bought a small army of their acoustic guitars for my high school since 2001. As far as quality and value go, Washburn is excellent. I have never felt slighted by their Korean, Indonesian, and Chinese manufacturing because the guitars I ordered were mostly solid workhorses. My issue was never with quality, though when you buy over 2 dozen of them over a period of time, you do get the occasional dud. My issue came about a few years ago when I noticed the customer care start to slip. I didn’t think much of it at the time because my experience showed that Washburn stood behind their products. One year, they even took in an acoustic with an expired warranty and did some major work on it for free! Sure, you’d let things slide if you are confident with a company and after they did you a solid like that!
However, in 2016, I ordered a Washburn Priestess (PXZ200B). It took a while to get it because it was a new-ish model at the time that wasn’t (and never became) regularly stocked at local music stores. When I called about a case for the axe, they admitted that they did not have a case available. They didn’t have solid information on if they ever would make one either. Even the rep thought it was insane that a guitar would be made and sold without a case available. How would a musician gig with it? However, he did suggest a few brands that made cases he felt would fit. Luckily I found one and have taken the axe on dozens of gigs since. The question burning in my head was, “why wouldn’t you make a case for a guitar that you designed?....especially since the guitar has an acquired shape?”. If I were to ask this question to a Washburn executive (if I could ever get one on the phone or if they ever responded to emails), I’m sure I’d get a runaround with figures, percentages, and other overthought data as to why they didn’t make one. However, the obvious reason why you WOULD make a case is so your customer could safely and proudly take your instrument to a show with your logo on it. This is when I started to become suspicious.
In the next few years, Ola Englund left Washburn, along with his Solar line, along with the Idols, along with a few other electric lines, and along with dozens of other players I remember from reading their annual catalogs. The only artists left are Nuno Bettencourt, Marzi Montazeri, and Michael Sweet with signature lines in electrics. With the exodus of electric guitars, I noticed a small addition of electric models and a surge of new acoustics. It’s almost stupid, the amount of new acoustics there are now, but I understand that there are aspects to their business that only they should know about. But as a fan of their guitars, artists, and history? This move made my suspicion grow.
A year or so later, I decided that I wanted to re-stock my guitar room at school with Washburn guitars again. There was a time (circa 2009) when Washburn’s entry level guitars (D9C) started to get really expensive and I couldn’t afford them for my school anymore. This was when I switched to Yamaha and have been very satisfied with them since. However, as my own personal love for Washburn grew along with my personal collection, I thought about giving Washburn another go. I have noticed that their acoustic line has expanded A LOT offering new and functional designs that were also aesthetically pleasing!! However, mostly made in China now, I wanted to at least have a conversation with their Artist Accommodations person to perhaps talk shop, talk about quality, and talk about ways to buy guitars in bulk. Maybe have a conversation about how me and my school could always push Washburn to parents, students, and audiences to help spread the word. Now, this could be a very naive pipe dream of mine, to have a working relationship with a guitar company, but at least I made the move to ask.
After multiple attempts to contact their Artist Accommodations person via email over the next few months, no response. Their customer service guy, who I always found to be helpful and friendly, even assured me to keep trying because Washburn was always accommodating of their long time customers. Now, I’m not calling this gentleman a liar, but the company sure did make a liar out of him by never responding. I’d rather a nasty email telling me to piss off because I’m a nobody than being simply ignored. I’m sure these suits are busy with their prized artists but what about the little guys? If you look up Washburn PXZ200B on YouTube, my review will likely be the only one that pops up with over 5k views. Now by YouTube standards, yes, I’m a pissant but that’s 5k people (likely all guitar players) who now know of the PXZ200B. I feature my Washburn’s a few times on my gear channel too, even to this day! With all the Washburn’s I have bought over the years for my school, myself, and the YouTube vids, I think I should at least be granted a conversation.
Now in 2019, the electric line is still weak with weak attempts at a revival. The new Idol series (my all time favorite) is a joke, nowhere near the visual or vibe appeal as the older line. The new version of my PXZ200B, now called Z260, is actually a downgrade from the original with no new finishes. The Nuno 4N is a bit of a reach too. Even when Nuno talks about it, he stumbles explaining the differences between it and his N4’s. 6,000 new acoustics tho so China’s economy will improve, but still no responses to new emails I send. Even general emails to customer service get ignored. I actually just called them and the voicemail loops once you try to connect to string department. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OVER THERE?!
Despite my frustration, I just bought a 2014 WI60v. I don’t know why. I’m fairly confident that I’ll never be able to get through to Washburn if I ever need warranty work done on it. I called earlier to get some info on the guitar based on its serial number and I can’t even get info on that. Is this just blind devotion? Denial? Insanity? I don’t know but I do know that Washburn seems like its electric line is going down pretty fast along with my confidence that they care about their customers.