Is It Worth Fixing? When to Repair Your Guitar and When to Replace It
One of the questions I hear regularly at Player's Gear is, "Is this guitar worth fixing?. The answer isn't always as simple as comparing the repair bill to the value of the guitar.
Let's say you bought a beginner acoustic for $200. A few years later, the bridge starts lifting off the top. You bring it in and discover that a proper bridge reglue will cost $150. For another $50, you could buy a comparable new guitar, probably with a warranty. From a financial standpoint, the repair doesn't make much sense. Now suppose that same bridge is lifting off a $2,000 Martin. Suddenly, spending $150 to restore the guitar looks like a bargain. It's the same repair, requiring the same materials, skill, and labor. The economics are completely different.
The Repair Bill Doesn't Care What Your Guitar Is Worth
Here's something worth understanding about guitar repair: the cost of a repair generally has very little to do with the market value of the instrument. A bridge reglue on an inexpensive import requires just as much work as the same repair on an expensive American-made guitar. Sometimes more. The glue doesn't know whether it's holding together a $200 guitar or a $2,000 guitar. Neither do the clamps. That's why some repairs are difficult to justify on inexpensive instruments.
But What About Grandpa's Guitar?
Suppose you've got an old acoustic that belonged to your grandfather. It's nothing special from a collector's standpoint. Maybe it's worth $100 on a good day. But Grandpa played that guitar every Sunday afternoon. Maybe he even taught you your first three chords on it. Now it needs $250 worth of work to make it playable again. Is it worth fixing? I'd say there's a pretty good chance it is. You aren't spending $250 to restore a $100 guitar. You're spending $250 to preserve something that connects you to somebody important in your life. You can't go to a music store and buy another guitar that Grandpa played.
And sometimes an instrument's history actually increases its market value. If Willie Nelson borrowed your guitar for a gig and autographed it afterward, that guitar might be worth considerably more than an identical one without that history. Hopefully, you got some pictures!
Most of us don't have a guitar Willie Nelson played, but plenty of us have guitars that somebody important to us played.
Other Considerations
Every now and then, you come across an inexpensive guitar that just has something special about it. The neck feels perfect, it sounds terrific, and you've never found another one quite like it.
You might own a $300 guitar you'd rather play than a $3,000 guitar. If it needs $200 worth of fretwork, replacing it with another $300 guitar doesn't necessarily get you what you already have.
And before spending money on any major repair, consider the rest of the instrument. A $150 bridge reglue makes less sense if the guitar also needs fretwork, has a questionable neck angle, and is developing cracks.
The important question isn't simply, "Can it be fixed?" It's "What will I have when it's finished, and what is that worth to me?"
The same reasoning applies to amplifiers and other musical equipment. Sometimes replacement is the sensible choice. Other times, repairing an old favorite is money well spent.
When You're Not Sure, Get An Informed Opinion
At Player's Gear, I like keeping good instruments in service, but that doesn't mean every guitar that comes through the door should be repaired.
Sometimes the sensible recommendation is to put the repair money toward another instrument. If that's what I think, I'll tell you.
Other times, the numbers might look terrible on paper, but there's a perfectly good reason to go ahead with the work.
My job is to explain what's wrong, what it will cost to fix, and what you can reasonably expect when the work is finished. The decision is yours.
If you're wondering whether your guitar is worth repairing, bring it by the shop. I'll check it out and do my very best to give you an accurate estimate of what's wrong, how I would fix it, and a range for the repair cost.