I think she's going back....

Well, the great deal I got on my 20 yo Bundy II tenor may not have been that great.  After practicing for a few days I noticed a lot of flutter in low notes, High G is impossible and overall the sax sounds dead and takes a too much air to get anything from.

So, last night I threw a light into it and it lit up light a christmas tree.  Pretty much every pad on the lower half of the horn leaks.  Mind you this was supposedly repadded prior to pickup.  They do look like new pads but was obviously a hack job because you can see gobs of whatever they're glued in place with.  I then started to check the linkage (sorry if thats not the proper term) and there is a lot of end play everywhere.  Also in a few places there is a lot of lateral movement at some of the mounting locations especially the low C key, to the point where when you press it only about half the pad touches yet very light pressure directly on the key itself it seals perfectly.

So this morning I'm going to decide what I want to do.  I figured the price was a bit low because it was older and cosmetically it was a little rough.  Nothing major just a few normal dings and scratches.  Being it was getting pads and a going over I figured it was a good buy and worth the little extra over an ebay piece. 

If they're willing to repair it free and sort out all the issues then I might keep it but what are the chances of them doing so much work on a cheap sax?  What are the costs involved with doing so much to it?  It could possibly need new pads again, the linkage I know can be shimmed or whatever for end play but the lateral movement would require new parts, no?

Is it worth polishing this turd or should I bite the bullet and spend a bit more on something else?  And I'm thinking I should find another music store since this one missed so many things with this sax, its like they didn't even test it after the work was done.

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