My experiences have been similar to those already mentioned in this thread. What I normally do is get a new-to-me instrument set up after I've had it for a couple of weeks, not right away. I give it some time before taking it in in order to let it settle in to the local climate and do what it's going to do.
This will often include such adjustments as nut height and truss rod tweaking.
After that, if the guitar proves to be stable, the next time it gets to the guitar repair shop is when the frets need to be dressed or replaced. Depending on how often it gets played, that can range from one year away to never.
Mandolins, though, are a different story. They're a lot twitchier than guitars in general, just because they're so (literally) high strung and under so much tension, and because the tolerances on them are so much finer. Everything is closer together on a mandolin, and because they weigh so much less than guitars, any hardware change such as putting on a different tailpiece or changing out the tuning gears can have a disproportionately larger effect on the sound.
When I was using an all-wood archtop mandolin, it often made it into the shop for setup tweaks and intonation twice a year: when the snow got on the ground to stay and when the snow melted off the ground to stay.
Now that I'm using a modern National M1 resonator mandolin as my main performing mandolin, I don't have to fuss and fidget with it nearly as often. But it still needs tweaking now and then: the cone can shift, the bridge saddle gets worn, the frets need to be dressed or replaced. So it gets into the shop maybe every year and a half or so.
So, short version: get a guitar set up properly within the first month of getting it, and you might never need to take it back into the shop. But with use and wear and time passing, it might not hurt to get it looked at every couple of years or so. Because some changes will creep up on you and not even be all that noticeable since they're so incremental.
Hope that makes sense.
Wade Hampton Miller
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