Buying/shipping parts from Europe | GTAMotorcycle.com

Buying/shipping parts from Europe

theshnizzle

theshnizzle

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Anyone have first hand expereince doing this? Is it terribly expensive to ship? Does it help if I have someone who can ship stuff to me person to person,like buying an item off a UK based forum,and having a member send it to me? I realize that it depends on size/weight ect of the item to be shipped,but in general is it prohibitivly pricey?

I am talking mainly from the UK.
 
I find that the prohibitiveness (is that a word?) comes from the difference in the currency.
 
I bought a part from the UK once. Couldn't have been easier. Shipping was relatively cheap (fairly small, light part), no duty, low price in UK, no tax and the part wasn't available via Honda Canada as it was never used on our imported model.
 
Back in April I had an accessory windscreen shipped from Cornwall, UK. It was a 2'x2'x1' box, that didn't weigh a whole lot, and it cost £17.50 to ship. Not cheap, but not prohibitive.

CRAP! Just realized that I forgot to claim the VAT back on that deal :(
 
I've ordered some parts from the UK off of ebay before and the shipping is sometimes cheaper than when it comes in from the US. I don't know how that works out, but I'm not gonna start complmaining about it :D
 
Rob MacLennan said:
Back in April I had an accessory windscreen shipped from Cornwall, UK. It was a 2'x2'x1' box, that didn't weigh a whole lot, and it cost £17.50 to ship. Not cheap, but not prohibitive.

CRAP! Just realized that I forgot to claim the VAT back on that deal :(
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Can you still do that? I thought the current government had stopped the tax refund thing for tourists but I'm not sure about goods purchased by citizens.
 
I ordered parts from the UK (Sammy Miller) and I wasn't charged VAT. I forget what the actual shipping cost was but it was reasonable. It saved me about 20% over what the US distributer was charging for the same part.
 
Having a Triumph... I have the same problem where a lot of things I want are in the UK.

But if you dig enough, you can find some dealers in North America that sell the parts. As for what's cheaper... it's a tough call. Some parts I've gotten were cheaper to get it straight from the UK, while other parts where cheaper from US/Canada. For each part, I always looked at both ways, so far about 2/3 of orders were cheaper ordering from US/Can.
 
If you can get a REALLY good deal, it will be worth it. Otherwise, shipping will be upwards of $50.

I've bought parts for my TDI when I had it from the UK (got a turbo and a bunch more stuff for about 1/2 what a used turbo costs here and it was an upgrade) and some bike parts (specifically an ABS pump for my bike because I'm planning on retrofitting the ABS system to my North American [no ABS] bike).

From Asia, on the otherhand, shipping generally seems to be cheap as hell.
 
I have bought parts from various places world wide ... UK is a no brainer buy ... its not usually expensive to ship and its fairly quick...

I've shipped out of Germany, Italy and they are more expensive and slow !? I have no idea why. It cost me 90 bucks for a 90 buck item from Germany and took about 5 weeks to get here. Would I buy it again ? yes. Reason ? They don't make parts for 20 year old motorcycles so sourcing a BRAND NEW 20 year old part was a score !
 
Can you google the Royal Mail or whatever they call it and get a price like you can from Canada post?
 
Last year I bought a manometer to synchro' throttle bodies from the UK and I think the freight was about 10-12 dollars and took three weeks to be to Canada. Small packet that only weighed a couple of pounds, but still not bad.
 
CrazyKell said:
I find that the prohibitiveness (is that a word?) comes from the difference in the currency.
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The CAD v GBP is perfect for us at the moment. An ideal time to buy from Europe. I bought some Daytonas from Germany in April. Paid $500 for a $700 boot.

Rob MacLennan said:
Back in April I had an accessory windscreen shipped from Cornwall, UK. It was a 2'x2'x1' box, that didn't weigh a whole lot, and it cost £17.50 to ship. Not cheap, but not prohibitive.

CRAP! Just realized that I forgot to claim the VAT back on that deal :(
Click to expand...

UK sellers can now sell ex VAT to North American buyers. Not sure if its everyone but i'm noticing it on a few websites where they quote ex of VAT.
 
Fiery254 said:
UK sellers can now sell ex VAT to North American buyers. Not sure if its everyone but i'm noticing it on a few websites where they quote ex of VAT.
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It's not all businesses. They have to be set up for it. The one that I dealt with, on my last purchase, wasn't. It was a Kawasaki dealership, in Cornwall, that just happens to ship. They were really good to deal with though.
 
I purchased two Kriega bags from the UK back in May. Price to my door, including shipping, taxes, blah, blah, blah, was cheaper than buying in North America.
 
I received an order from Austria on Oct 12, for my '66 Twingle and '61 Scoot. Two pistons, 3 sets of spokes, and other parts. It was about the same price as ordering from the States who were out of stock. Told them they'd shipped the wrong size, their mistake, and they dropped another set in the mail immediately.
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