Why are fender guitars so expensive?!

Why are fender guitars so expensive?

compared to other brands, fender's prices are like wooooooossssshhh higher.
even if it shares the exact same specs. as other guitars.
i dont get it!!!
is it the pickups?? the neck?? body?? what??
why are they soo EXPENSIVE??

They're cheap compared to Gibson... and even some of the nicer Asian guitars... The only pricy Fenders I'm aware of are the American made ones. We all know how much American labor costs compared to overseas... The highest quality parts and best sounding electronics are usually reserved for the American made models. More attention is paid to details and setup. A foreign made guitar is very likely to need a pro setup and fine-tuning before playing and sounding it's best.

Any guitar cheaper than a foreign made Fender will likely be made out of plywood, have a poor quality neck or hardware that effects tuning stability, poor sounding pickups, etc... You can get a standard foreign made Fender Stratocaster for around $400.00. Honestly, that's about what a decent sounding guitar costs. It's actually pretty hard to find a guitar with good sounding electronics and a tremolo at that price. Most good sounding, solid wood fixed bridge guitars with good tuning stability, decent hardware and electronics cost around $400.00.

If you want a really cheap plywood guitar with a thinner body, smaller, cheaper fret wire, cheaper hardware, tuning issues and poor sounding electonics... Fender does indeed make those too under the Squier name... http://www.musiciansfriend.com/guitar/na...

So... Fender is pretty competitive at all the different quality levels. You generally get what you pay for when you buy a guitar or anything else... It's pretty hard to sell an overpriced item with all of the competition.

I'm not all that crazy about the vintage tremolo system on the more affordable Fenders. Doesn't stay in tune. You'd be better off going with a higher quality Asian guitar (Ibanez) that has a genuine Floyd Rose tremolo or a good licensed version. They have a similar feel when playing and any guitar with 3 single coil pickups or humbuckers with coil tapping should be able to produce that "Strat" sound.