Kiesel --- Never Again!

[FitRocker33]

same cleaning method as

Noooooooo!!!!!!!

 

[A-Branger]

 

[Cynicanal]

That video burns my soul.

 

[RockMixer]

I personally have had nothing but bad experiences with them.
The guitars look cool, but the quality control sucks, the customer service sucks, and the setups vary drastically!
Very inconsistent! Also my issue went all the way to Jeff Kiesel (DANG!, RAD!) himself and what I found was, this guy is a narcissist! I was a great customer of Carvin, Kiesel and instead of bending over backwards to try and make me happy, he basically told me to go F myself! No customer loyalty!! Watch his namm videos.....every 5 seconds its ..."call my guys, this guitar is available!" All he cares about is sales and money. Does not give a crap about the customer experience! I have a PRS that was damaged in an accident. Sent it back to PRS. They fixed it. No Charge!! I offered to pay them, they would not take it! Thats when you really care about your customers! Oh yea and my PRS's, and my Aristides are way better guitars than Kiesel will ever be! Because Jeff just sees $$$ signs! Maybe one day he will grow up and realize that customer service and quality = brand loyalty!

So before anyone even says it, yeah I just copied and pasted my post from another forum I'm a member of. Couldn't see re-writing anything different because:

a) Its what happened.
b) I wasted enough time on the whole debacle as it is.

I'm not looking for sympathy, just trying to tell my story so people can make informed decisions based on others experiences.

Sorry, just had to put that out there because I've seen guys get bashed for copying their original post in another forum and putting it up here unchanged.

So a while back I received my Kiesel A6H build, and despite the fact that it was indeed a stunning guitar aesthetically, regrettably I returned it for a refund. I can honestly say that this was one of the most horrible customer experiences I've encountered, and I'll never even remotely consider another Kiesel product again.

There were several reasons I finally had enough and asked them to refund me:

1) Horrible experience with Mike Jones, my sales guy. This is explained in detail below for those interested in a lengthy read.

2) Action problems related to the bridge saddle heights. (Pics of this below)

3) Failure by the techs to address my concerns despite a very detailed letter I sent in with the guitar and a promise made by their sales manager.


Here is the conversation with Mike Jones, my sales guy:

Bear in mind I only contacted Mike about 4 times over the course of 3 months, so its not like I was hounding the guy.

The 4th time I contacted him because I had received an email from Kiesel stating that my guitar was complete and ready to ship. I had asked they ship it on a particular date and after getting their message that it was ready, I called Mike just to confirm they were shipping on the correct date.

Well here is how the conversation went (This is all 100% direct quoting):

Me: Hi Mike how you doing, I just wanted to check the shipping status of my guitar.

Mike: Oh unfortunately we can't check on status of guitars in production.

Me: Oh no, I'm calling because I received an email that my guitar is complete and ready to ship.

Mike: Oh, Ok. Let me check on this. I'll have to check and call you back later because with NAMM coming up, were not allowed anywhere near the back where all the guitars are kept.

Me: Ok, but they emailed me and told me my guitar was ready to ship, so I guess I'm a bit confused here.

Mike: It may be done, but with NAMM coming up its not uncommon that they steal parts off customers completed guitars if need be to get our NAMM guitars ready to show.

Me: Oh! Well why don't you check on this, and please let me know today if you could.


So about 1.5 hours after hanging up with him I think .... on this, what's he talking about "stealing parts off customers finished guitars". So I call back for the 2nd time.


I get Mike on the line for the 2nd time this day and here is how it goes:

Me: Hey Mike, I called a little while ago checking on my completed guitar.

Here he cuts me off real aggressively:

Mike: You know your being really rude!

Me: Excuse me?

Mike: Yeah, I told you I would check on this and call you back. Now your calling back bothering me about your guitar, and its really starting to irritate me!

Me: Dude, Did you really just say that to me?

Mike: (In a completely aggressive tone) Yeah, I did. Because I told you we are not allowed near the guitars and also because there is a chance like I told you that even if your guitar is done and ready to ship, they may need to take parts off it to get ready for NAMM.

Me: So your telling me that even though my guitar is complete, ready to ship, and I have paid for it in full several days ago and thus essentially now own the guitar, they might need to take parts off of it.

Mike: Yep, That's exactly what I'm telling you.


At this point I'm ....ing beyond pissed, and I tell Mike to have a good day and hang up.

I immediately email the billing person that emailed me several days prior informing me the guitar was complete and explain how Mike Jones just treated me. 15 minutes later Mike Jones calls back and no apology whatsoever tells me the guitars done and its shipping Monday. I thanked him and hung the .... up.

So that should have been when I told them to keep the guitar and refund me, but unfortunately I didn't.

Now for the action problem I had that led to me sending the guitar in after speaking with the sales manager and their lead tech.

I sent the guitar in to have Albert their lead tech look at it after speaking with him on the phone. Talking to him gave me the impression he absolutely just did not care about anything I was saying. Spoke to him the first day and he couldn't think of anything that would cause the issues, so I asked if he could think on it and call me or email me by end of day. He said "yep, absolutely let you know before I leave today". Never heard back. Called him the next day and said "Hi Albert this is Mike, I spoke to yesterday about my Aries 6 issues. He says " Yeah?", and there's just this awkward dead silence. Just came off like he didn't care at all. Like why are you bothering me with this. He told me to just send it in because he still couldn't think what would cause the issues I described.

Now I sent it back with a VERY detailed letter explaining my issues and asked specifically that they call me after looking at it and before sending it back because if they couldn't get the saddle heights corrected by shimming, or by replacing the .125" bridge with the thicker .175" baseplate version, then I would just want them to keep the guitar and give me a refund.

The sales manager said they would absolutely call me after looking at it and before sending it back to me because he personally put a note in the tech's work order. It never happened. They ignored my detailed letter and the "supposed" tech notes the sales manager put in the work order because after about a week I called just to see if they had looked at it yet and the same sales manager that promised they'd contact me after it was looked at said "oh, its done and FedEx is picking it up here today and its on its way back to you".

I asked if he could stop the delivery and he said he couldn't. Which I didn't believe but....maybe that was true, I don't know. I asked what they did to correct the bridge saddle heights and he said they adjusted the truss rod. I told him that I already did this in addition to making all sorts of other adjustments and that's not where the problem was stemming from. He said well, just try it out and we can go from there.

I knew for a fact that the issue could not be fixed with a truss rod adjustment, so after all the bull.... I had been dealing with I decided to refuse delivery when the FedEx guy came and it went back for a refund.

Here is how the guitar came brand new from the factory set up:

The saddles were completely maxed out on the 6th and 5th strings and then almost maxed out on the remaining four. I couldn't get the saddles anywhere near adjusted to match the fretboard radius. It played REALLY bad. Action was horrible. This was set up by them as requested by me in drop C with .012-.054 strings. No way the saddles should have been had to be set at that height, but even a fraction of a mm lower and there was fret buzz all over the fretboard. I thought if they replaced the .125" Hipshot with the .175" taller version that this could have corrected things. Or hell, even if they had shimmed the neck, or both?


I'll just finish by saying the guitar was absolutely drop dead gorgeous, it came out exactly how I had hoped aesthetically, had no fit to finish flaws that I could find, had a great fundamental tone to it, and I truly wanted to keep it if they could have worked with me. Unfortunately however, the impression I got was they really could not have cared less.

 

[MatiasTolkki]

Not to dredge up old shit where I actually defend kiesel a bit, but I've gone through Chris and everything went smoothly. I had a Kiesel branded V220 and it played great and everything, but it wasn't for me so in the end I sold it. Also, to be fair, it wasn't a quality issue besides the white primer coat showing in some places it SHOULDN'T but in terms of playability, it was perfectly fine. I just realized I'm better off using traditional strat/super strat shapes. I will never talk bad about that V220 because it was a good, solid guitar.

 

[RockMixer]

I'm glad you had a good experience. I had bought Carvin / Kiesel guitars for over 10 years. I liked many of them and several of them needed a lot of work to play the way I needed. The quality was inconsistent. If you only owned one, then it is hard to understand. But my main point was, when I had an issue with a guitar I ordered, they were total dicks to me! Including Jeff! Thats not the way to treat someone who has spent in upward of 10k with your company!

Not to dredge up old shit where I actually defend kiesel a bit, but I've gone through Chris and everything went smoothly. I had a Kiesel branded V220 and it played great and everything, but it wasn't for me so in the end I sold it. Also, to be fair, it wasn't a quality issue besides the white primer coat showing in some places it SHOULDN'T but in terms of playability, it was perfectly fine. I just realized I'm better off using traditional strat/super strat shapes. I will never talk bad about that V220 because it was a good, solid guitar.

 

[MatiasTolkki]

I'm glad you had a good experience. I had bought Carvin / Kiesel guitars for over 10 years. I liked many of them and several of them needed a lot of work to play the way I needed. The quality was inconsistent. If you only owned one, then it is hard to understand. But my main point was, when I had an issue with a guitar I ordered, they were total dicks to me! Including Jeff! Thats not the way to treat someone who has spent in upward of 10k with your company!

I still have my Carvin-era JB200 as that thing, while it had some issues early on, a couple little fixes and it plays amazingly. It's still my #1, with my Ibanez RG550RFR being 1B.

 

[Open Lane]

I don’t understand how they could justify sending out a guitar with action that high. Something was obviously wrong with it.

Question for other buyers:
When you recieved yours, was it pretty much ready to play out of the box? Or does the company usually leave the setup to the buyer?


I just have a hard time understanding how anyone in their right mind could consider action that high acceptable.

 

[iamaom]

When you recieved yours, was it pretty much ready to play out of the box? Or does the company usually leave the setup to the buyer?

I ordered an all stock Vader 8 through their online builder (which I've heard is a no-no), aside from the order and shipping conformation emails I didn't get any communication with them for 4 months. Guitar was set up perfect (or at least perfect for my preferences). It seems the more custom your "custom" guitar is, the more likely Kiesel is to fuck it up, and the more likely they'll try to worm out of refunding a $3k+ instrument which is where you get a lot of the stories from. They're a strange company for sure, and Jeff Kiesel is one weird dude, but they offer some niche products no one else does for cheaper than anyone else, so they'll always get business.

 

[canuck brian]

I had an old DC727 that was a pretty kick ass guitar. Most of the Carvin/Kiesel stuff i've played and checked out seems really well built.

I can see the little messups happening when you run a semi-custom shop instead of standardized products though.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

I don’t understand how they could justify sending out a guitar with action that high. Something was obviously wrong with it.

Question for other buyers:
When you recieved yours, was it pretty much ready to play out of the box? Or does the company usually leave the setup to the buyer?


I just have a hard time understanding how anyone in their right mind could consider action that high acceptable.

all of my guitars were setup well straight out of the box.

 

[yellowv]

I personally have had nothing but bad experiences with them.
The guitars look cool, but the quality control sucks, the customer service sucks, and the setups vary drastically!
Very inconsistent! Also my issue went all the way to Jeff Kiesel (DANG!, RAD!) himself and what I found was, this guy is a narcissist! I was a great customer of Carvin, Kiesel and instead of bending over backwards to try and make me happy, he basically told me to go F myself! No customer loyalty!! Watch his namm videos.....every 5 seconds its ..."call my guys, this guitar is available!" All he cares about is sales and money. Does not give a crap about the customer experience! I have a PRS that was damaged in an accident. Sent it back to PRS. They fixed it. No Charge!! I offered to pay them, they would not take it! Thats when you really care about your customers! Oh yea and my PRS's, and my Aristides are way better guitars than Kiesel will ever be! Because Jeff just sees $$$ signs! Maybe one day he will grow up and realize that customer service and quality = brand loyalty!

I had the same sort of experience dealing with old Jeffy boy.

 

[MatiasTolkki]

I don’t understand how they could justify sending out a guitar with action that high. Something was obviously wrong with it.

Question for other buyers:
When you recieved yours, was it pretty much ready to play out of the box? Or does the company usually leave the setup to the buyer?


I just have a hard time understanding how anyone in their right mind could consider action that high acceptable.

mine needed a set up, and because they didn't shim the OFR, which i only recently noticed, i had to shim the saddles myself.

 

[MetalHead40]

I don’t understand how they could justify sending out a guitar with action that high. Something was obviously wrong with it.

Question for other buyers:
When you recieved yours, was it pretty much ready to play out of the box? Or does the company usually leave the setup to the buyer?


I just have a hard time understanding how anyone in their right mind could consider action that high acceptable.

What was even more godawful than the guitar's action on that hipshot was the way their customer service treated me. And for Jeff to call me out publicly in a video basically saying I manipulated the pics to make Kiesel look bad...pathetic!!!!

 

[RockMixer]

I was a long time Carvin / Kiesel customer. Not going to get into all the details. If you want details simply google "My crappy experience with Kiesel Guitars". All I am going to say is this.....
Since Jeff took over the company, out of the 4 Kiesel Aries that I owned, only one of them played really nice! The others were ok at best, I have Korean imports that blow them away. Kiesel builds some awesome looking guitars for sure as far as colors, woods, etc. I find their fretwork and neck quality inconsistent. Customer service and the way they treat their clients is ridiculously bad! This is all based on my experience and my opinion. I am just sharing it. I own a Tom Anderson Angel. Amazing guitar! The neck is SICK! I was thinking about changing the bridge pickup. I called Anderson guitars, and Tom Anderson himself got on the phone with me and spent 30 mins talking pickups!! Thats a guy who REALLY cares about his clients and is passionate about guitars!

So anyway, A friend of mine turned me on to Ernie Ball / Music Man about a year ago. Since then, I have bought 3 Petrucci JP's. I just recently got a JP15. The necks and feel of these guitars blow away most everything I have ever played! It makes Kiesel look like a toy! I would rather pay a few dollars more and get a 1000 time better guitar! Yes! That much better!! Again....my experience!

Hopefully one day Kiesel will up their quality control and more important their customer support!

Peace & Love!

 

[prlgmnr]

"My crappy experience with Kiesel Guitars"

You might have to be more specific.

This all works as marketing for Kiesel though, doesn't it.

It's like when Jamie Oliver did that show demonstrating the repulsive methods employed to craft Turkey Twizzlers and everyone was like "woah, gross", but sales went up.

 

[mikolo]

Yeah one time I purchased a keisel... looked great from a few feet away.

Had some buzzing across the board, took it to my luthier. Neck had a twist, fretwork is shoddy, nut needed adjustments. I sold it pretty quick for quite a hit.

The Carvin I had a while back on the otherhand had no issues.

 

[Mike]

Did your kesel have that weird issue where the hipshot had all the saddles jacked all the way up to clear the frets properly? I remember seeing this was an issue a while back because of something with the bodycut/neck pocket height or something and that was kiesel's workaround to get the hipshots to work. Never saw if they remedied this. Don't even know why I really care cause I'll never buy a Kiesel anway as I already went through my Carvin phase and was never 100% satisfied with them.

 

[DudeManBrother]

And here we go again

 

[RockMixer]

I am not sure if I had that exact issue. But I had so many others.

I think when the company was Carvin, they made better instruments. My bass player has a Carvin Bass which is really quite good in feel and sound. And yes I agree, I will never buy another Kiesel! I would also tell everyone I know to stay away!!

Did your kesel have that weird issue where the hipshot had all the saddles jacked all the way up to clear the frets properly? I remember seeing this was an issue a while back because of something with the bodycut/neck pocket height or something and that was kiesel's workaround to get the hipshots to work. Never saw if they remedied this. Don't even know why I really care cause I'll never buy a Kiesel anway as I already went through my Carvin phase and was never 100% satisfied with them.