riviera_kid

Thanks everyone for the advice, its useful hearing the different perspectives - will definitely be shopping around and testing basses out where possible!

[b]Are Fender basses better north of the border?[/b] I'm thinking of picking up a used Fender Jazz or Precision in the next few weeks. I've only got a few hundred pounds to spare so I need to make sure I know what I'm buying! Bass-ically I need to know what is up with the Mexican made standard basses? I gather that Fender have been making basses in Mexico some a long while and whilst I am sure the good people of Mexico are more than capable of making decent instruments, I am assuming it is a way of keeping production costs down. So are they any good? I vaguely remember at one time you could buy a new Mexican Fender Precision for less than £400 but if you wanted the proper non-mexican Precision that would add an extra couple of hundred pounds to the price tag. Now, most of the Precisions I have seen on Ebay, gumtree and elsewhere seem to be made in Mexico but are not labelled as the 'made in mexico' versions I remember seeing years ago. Am I making sense at this point? I've seen plenty of reviews on YouTube of the mexican P bass and they all seem to suggest that its as good a bass as you can get, so help me out here - Have Fender moved P bass production from the USA to Mexico or has it always been this way? Is it socially acceptable among bass players to use Mexican made basses? Sorry, odd question I know! Would be interested to know anyone's thoughts on the matter!